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Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John
Creator(s): Alexander, William (1824-1911)
Nicoll, William Robertson, Sir (1851-1923) (Editor)
Print Basis: London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1906.
CCEL Subjects: All;
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THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
Editor of "The Expositor," etc.
THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN
TWENTY-ONE DISCOURSES
With Greek Text, Comparative Versions, and Notes Chiefly Exegetical
BY
WILLIAM ALEXANDER
D.D., D.C.L. Oxon., Hon. LL.D. Dublin
BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD
LORD BISHOP OF DERRY AND RAPHOE
FOURTH EDITION
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCVI
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Hujus scriptis illustratur,
Illustrata solidatur
Unitas Ecclesiæ.
Adam of St. Victor
Seq. xxxi. (S. Johannes Evangelista).
PREFACE.
It is now many years ago since I entered upon a study of the Epistles
of St. John, as serious and prolonged as was consistent with the often
distracting cares of an Irish Bishop. Such fruit as my labours produced
enjoyed the advantage of appearing in the last volume of the Speaker's
Commentary in 1881.
Since that period I have frequently turned again to these
Epistles--subsequent reflection or study not seldom filling in gaps in
my knowledge, or leading me to modify former interpretations. When
invited last year to resume my old work, I therefore embraced willingly
the opportunity which was presented to me.
Let me briefly state the method pursued in this book.
I. The First Part contains four Discourses.
(1) In the first Discourse I have tried to place the reader in the
historical surroundings from which (unless all early Church history is
unreal, a past that never was present) these Epistles emanated.
(2) In the second Discourse I compare the Epistle with the Gospel. This
is the true point of orientation for the commentator. Call the
connection between the two documents what we may; be the Epistle
preface, appendix, moral and devotional commentary, or accompanying
encyclical address to the Churches, which were "the nurslings of John";
that connection is constant and pervasive. Unless this principle is
firmly grasped, we not only lose a defence and confirmation of the
Gospel, but dissolve the whole consistency of the Epistle, and leave it
floating--the thinnest cloud in the whole cloudland of mystic idealism.
(3) The third Discourse deals with the polemical element in these
Epistles. Some commentators indeed, like the excellent Henry Hammond,
"spy out Gnostics where there are none." They confuse us with uncouth
names, and conjure up the ghosts of long-forgotten errors until we seem
to hear a theological bedlam, or to see theological scarecrows. Yet
Gnosticism, Doketism, Cerinthianism, certainly sprang from the teeming
soil of Ephesian thought; and without a recognition of this fact, we
shall never understand the Epistle. Undoubtedly, if the Apostle had
addressed himself only to contemporary error, his great Epistle would
have become completely obsolete for us. To subsequent ages an
antiquated polemical treatise is like a fossil scorpion with a sting of
stone. But a divinely taught polemic under transitory forms of error
finds principles as lasting as human nature.
(4) The object of the fourth Discourse is to bring out the image of St.
John's soul--the essentials of the spiritual life to be found in those
precious chapters which still continue to be an element of the life of
the Church.
Such a view, if at all accurate, will enable the reader to contemplate
the whole of the Epistle with the sense of completeness, of remoteness,
and of unity which arises from a general survey apart from particular
difficulties. An ancient legend insisted that St. John exercised
miraculous power in blending again into one the broken pieces of a
precious stone. We may try in an humble way to bring these fragmentary
particles of spiritual gem-dust together, and fuse them into one.
II. The plan pursued in the second part is this. The First Epistle (of
which only I need now speak) is divided into ten sections.
The sections are thus arranged--
(1) The text is given in Greek. In this matter I make no pretence to
original research; and have simply adopted Tischendorf's text, with
occasional amendments from Dr. Scrivener or Prof. Westcott. At one time
I might have been tempted to follow Lachmann; but experience taught me
that he is "audacior quàm limatior," and I held my hand. The advantage
to every studious reader of having the divine original close by him for
comparison is too obvious to need a word more.
With the Greek I have placed in parallel columns the translations most
useful for ordinary readers--the Latin, the English A.V. and R.V. The
Latin text is that of the "Codex Amiatinus," after Tischendorf's
splendid edition of 1854. In this the reader will find the Hieronymian
interpretation as it stood not more than a hundred and twenty years
after the death of St. Jerome, an interpretation more diligent and more
accurate than that which is supplied by the ordinary Vulgate text. The
saint felt "the peril of presuming to judge others where he himself
would be judged by all; of changing the tongue of the old, and carrying
back a world which was growing hoary to the initial essay of infancy."
The Latin is of that form to which ancient Latin Church writers gave
the name of "rusticitas." But it is a happy--I had almost said a
divine--rusticity. In translating from the Hebrew of the Old Testament,
St. Jerome has given a new life, a strange tenderness or awful cadence,
to prophets and psalmists. The voice of the fields is the voice of
Heaven also. The tongue of the people is for once the tongue of God.
This Hebraistic Latin or Latinised Hebrew forms the strongest link in
that mysterious yet most real spell wherewith the Latin of the Church
enthrals the soul of the world. But to return to our immediate subject.
The student can seldom go wrong by more than a hair's breadth when he
has before him three such translations. In the first column stands St.
Jerome's vigorous Latin. The second contains the English A.V., of which
each clause seems to be guarded by the spirits of the holy dead, as
well as by the love of the living Church; and to tell the innovator
that he "does wrong to show it violence, being so majestical." The
third column offers to view the scholarlike--if sometimes just a little
pedantic and provoking--accuracy of the R.V. To this comparison of
versions I attach much significance. Every translation is an additional
commentary, every good translation the best of commentaries.
I have ventured with much hesitation to add upon another column in each
section a translation drawn up by myself for my own private use; the
greater portion of which was made a year or two before the publication
of the R.V. Its right to be here is this, that it affords the best key
to my meaning in any place where the exposition may be imperfectly
expressed. [1]
(2) One or more Discourses are attached to most of the sections. In
these I may have seemed sometimes to have given myself a wide scope,
but I have tried to make a sound and careful exegesis the basis of
each. And I have throughout considered myself bound to draw out some
great leading idea of St. John with conscientious care.
(3) The Discourses (or if there be no Discourse in the section, the
text and versions) are followed by short notes, chiefly exegetical, in
which I have not willingly passed by any real difficulty.
I have not wished to cumber my pages with constant quotations. But in
former years I have read, in some cases with much care, the following
commentators--St. Augustine's Tractatus, St. John Chrysostom's Homilies
on the Gospel (full of hints upon the Epistles), Cornelius à Lapide; of
older post-Reformation commentators, the excellent Henry Hammond, the
eloquent Dean Hardy, the precious fragments in Pole's Synopsis--above
all, the inimitable Bengel; of moderns, Düsterdieck, Huther, Ebrard,
Neander; more recently, Professor Westcott, whose subtle and exquisite
scholarship deserves the gratitude of every student of St. John. Of
Haupt I know nothing, with the exception of an analysis of the Epistle,
which is stamped with the highest praise of so refined and competent a
judge as Archdeacon Farrar. But having read this list fairly in past
years, I am now content to have before me nothing but a Greek
Testament, the Grammars of Winer and Donaldson, the New Testament
lexicons of Bretschneider, Grimm, and Mintert, with Tromm's
"Concordantia LXX." For, on the whole, I really prefer St. John to his
commentators. And I hope I am not ungrateful for help which I have
received from them, when I say that I now seem to myself to understand
him better without the dissonance of their many voices. "Johannem nisi
ex Johanne ipso non intellexeris."
III. It only remains to commend this book, such as it is, not only to
theological students, but to general readers, who I hope will not be
alarmed by a few Greek words here and there.
I began my fuller study of St. John's Epistle in the noonday of life; I
am closing it with the sunset in my eyes. I pray God to sanctify this
poor attempt to the edification of souls, and the good of the Church.
And I ask all who may find it useful, to offer their intercessions for
a blessing upon the book, and upon its author.
WILLIAM DERRY AND RAPHOE.
The Palace, Londonderry,
February 6th, 1889.
Merciful God, we beseech Thee to cast Thy bright beams of light upon
Thy Church, that it being enlightened by the doctrine of Thy blessed
Apostle and Evangelist St. John, may so walk in the light of Thy truth,
that it may at length attain to the light of everlasting life, through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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[1] I venture to call attention to the rendering "very." It enables the
translator to mark the important distinction between two words:
alethes, factually true and real, as opposed to that which in point of
fact is mendacious; alethinos, ideally true and real, that which alone
realizes the idea imperfectly expressed by something else. This is one
of St. John's favourite words. In regard to agape I have not had the
courage of my convictions. The word "charity" seems to me almost
providentially preserved for the rendering of that term. It is not
without a purpose that eros is so rigorously excluded from the New
Testament. [So also from the Epp. of Ignatius.] The objection that
"charity" conveys to ordinary English people the notion of mere
material alms is of little weight. If "charity" is sometimes a little
metallic, is not "love" sometimes a little maundering? I agree with
Canon Evans that the word, strictly speaking, should be always
translated "charity" when alone, "love" when in regimen. Yet I have not
been bold enough to put "God is charity" for "God is love."
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PART I.
"Johannis Epistolæ, ultimusque primæ versiculus, in Ephesum
imprimis conveniunt."
(Bengel in Act. xix. 21.)
DISCOURSE I.
THE SURROUNDINGS OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
"Little children, keep yourselves from idols."-- I John v. 21.
After the example of a writer of genius, preachers and essayists for
the last forty years have constantly applied--or misapplied--some lines
from one of the greatest of Christian poems. Dante sings of St. John--
"As he, who looks intent,
And strives with searching ken, how he may see
The sun in his eclipse, and, through decline
Of seeing, loseth power of sight: so I
Gazed on that last resplendence." [2]
The poet meant to be understood of the Apostle's spiritual splendour of
soul, of the absorption of his intellect and heart in his conception of
the Person of Christ and of the dogma of the Holy Trinity. By these
expositors of Dante the image is transferred to the style and structure
of his writings. But confusion of thought is not magnificence, and mere
obscurity is never sunlike. A blurred sphere and undecided outline is
not characteristic of the sun even in eclipse. Dante never intended us
to understand that St. John as a writer was distinguished by a
beautiful vagueness of sentiment, by bright but tremulously drawn lines
of dogmatic creed. It is indeed certain that round St. John himself, at
the time when he wrote, there were many minds affected by this vague
mysticism. For them, beyond the scanty region of the known, there was a
world of darkness whose shadows they desired to penetrate. For them
this little island of life was surrounded by waters into whose depths
they affected to gaze. They were drawn by a mystic attraction to things
which they themselves called the "shadows," the "depths," the
"silences." But for St. John these shadows were a negation of the
message which he delivered that "God is light, and darkness in Him is
none." These silences were the contradiction of the Word who has once
for all interpreted God. These depths were "depths of Satan." [3] For
the men who were thus enamoured of indefiniteness, of shifting
sentiments and flexible creeds, were Gnostic heretics. Now St. John's
style, as such, has not the artful variety, the perfect balance in the
masses of composition, the finished logical cohesion of the Greek
classical writers. Yet it can be loftily or pathetically impressive. It
can touch the problems and processes of the moral and spiritual world
with a pencil-tip of deathless light, or compress them into symbols
which are solemnly or awfully picturesque. [4] Above all St. John has
the faculty of enshrining dogma in forms of statement which are firm
and precise--accurate enough to be envied by philosophers, subtle
enough to defy the passage of heresy through their finely drawn yet
powerful lines. Thus in the beginning of his Gospel all false thought
upon the Person of Him who is the living theology of His Church is
refuted by anticipation--that which in itself or in its certain
consequences unhumanises or undeifies the God Man; that which denies
the singularity of the One Person who was Incarnate, or the reality and
entireness of the Manhood of Him who fixed His Tabernacle [5] of
humanity in us. [6]
It is therefore a mistake to look upon the First Epistle of St. John as
a creedless composite of miscellaneous sweetnesses, a disconnected
rhapsody upon philanthropy. And it will be well to enter upon a serious
perusal of it, with a conviction that it did not drop from the sky upon
an unknown place, at an unknown time, with an unknown purpose. We can
arrive at some definite conclusions as to the circumstances from which
it arose, and the sphere in which it was written--at least if we are
entitled to say that we have done so in the case of almost any other
ancient document of the same nature.
Our simplest plan will be, in the first instance, to trace in the
briefest outline the career of St. John after the Ascension of our
Lord, so far as it can be followed certainly by Scripture, or with the
highest probability from early Church history. We shall then be better
able to estimate the degree in which the Epistle fits into the
framework of local thought and circumstances in which we desire to
place it.
Much of this biography can best be drawn out by tracing the contrast
between St. John and St. Peter, which is conveyed with such subtle and
exquisite beauty in the closing chapter of the fourth Gospel.
The contrast between the two Apostles is one of history and of
character.
Historically the work done by each of them for the Church differs in a
remarkable way from the other.
We might have anticipated for one so dear to our Lord a distinguished
part in spreading the Gospel among the nations of the world. The tone
of thought revealed in parts of his Gospel might even have seemed to
indicate a remarkable aptitude for such a task. St. John's peculiar
appreciation of the visit of the Greeks to Jesus, and his preservation
of words which show such deep insight into Greek religious ideas, would
apparently promise a great missionary, at least to men of lofty
speculative thought. [7] But in the Acts of the Apostles St. John is
first overshadowed, then effaced, by the heroes of the missionary epic,
St. Peter and St. Paul. After the close of the Gospels he is mentioned
five times only. Once his name occurs in a list of the Apostles. [8]
Thrice he passes before us with Peter. [9] Once again (the first and
last time when we hear of St. John in personal relation with St. Paul)
he appears in the Epistle to the Galatians with two others, James and
Cephas, as reputed to be pillars of the Church. [10] But whilst we read
in the Acts of his taking a certain part in miracles, in preaching, in
confirmation; while his boldness is acknowledged by adversaries of the
faith; not a line of his individual teaching is recorded. He walks in
silence by the side of the Apostle who was more fitted to be a
missionary pioneer. [11]
With the materials at our command, it is difficult to say how St. John
was employed whilst the first great advance of the cross was in
progress. We know for certain that he was at Jerusalem during the
second visit of St. Paul. But there is no reason for conjecturing that
he was in that city when it was visited by St. Paul on his last voyage
[12] (A.D. 60); while we shall presently have occasion to show how
markedly the Church tradition connects St. John with Ephesus.
We have next to point out that this contrast in the history of the
Apostles is the result of a contrast in their characters. This contrast
is brought out with a marvellous prophetic symbolism in the miraculous
draught of fishes after the Resurrection.
First as regards St. Peter.
"When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat
unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea." [13]
His was the warm energy, the forward impulse of young life, the free
bold plunge of an impetuous and chivalrous nature into the waters which
are nations and peoples. In he must; on he will. The prophecy which
follows the thrice renewed restitution of the fallen Apostle is as
follows: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou
girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou
shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall
gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake He,
signifying by what death He should glorify God, and when He had spoken
this, He saith unto him, Follow Me." [14] This, we are told, is
obscure; but it is obscure only as to details. To St. Peter it could
have conveyed no other impression than that it foretold his martyrdom.
"When thou wast young," points to the tract of years up to old age. It
has been said that forty is the old age of youth, fifty the youth of
old age. But our Lord does not actually define old age by any precise
date. He takes what has occurred as a type of Peter's youthfulness of
heart and frame--"girding himself," with rapid action, as he had done
shortly before; "walking," as he had walked on the white beach of the
lake in the early dawn; "whither thou wouldest," as when he had cried
with impetuous half defiant independence, "I go a fishing," invited by
the auguries of the morning, and of the water. The form of expression
seems to indicate that Simon Peter was not to go far into the dark and
frozen land; that he was to be growing old, rather than absolutely old.
[15] Then should he stretch forth his hands, with the dignified
resignation of one who yields manfully to that from which nature would
willingly escape. "This spake He," adds the evangelist, "signifying by
what death he shall glorify God." [16] What fatal temptation leads so
many commentators to minimise such a prediction as this? If the
prophecy were the product of a later hand added after the martyrdom of
St. Peter, it certainly would have wanted its present inimitable
impress of distance and reserve.
It is in the context of this passage that we read most fully and truly
the contrast of our Apostle's nature with that of St. Peter. St. John,
as Chrysostom has told us in deathless words, was loftier, saw more
deeply, pierced right into and through spiritual truths, [17] was more
the lover of Jesus than of Christ, as Peter was more the lover of
Christ than of Jesus. Below the different work of the two men, and
determining it, was this essential difference of nature, which they
carried with them into the region of grace. St. John was not so much
the great missionary with his sacred restlessness; not so much the
oratorical expositor of prophecy with his pointed proofs of
correspondence between prediction and fulfilment, and his passionate
declamation driving in the conviction of guilt like a sting that
pricked the conscience. He was the theologian; the quiet master of the
secrets of the spiritual life; the calm strong controversialist who
excludes error by constructing truth. The work of such a spirit as his
was rather like the finest product of venerable and long established
Churches. One gentle word of Jesus sums up the biography of long years
which apparently were without the crowded vicissitudes to which other
Apostles were exposed. If the old Church history is true, St. John was
either not called upon to die for Jesus, or escaped from that death by
a miracle. That one word of the Lord was to become a sort of motto of
St. John. It occurs some twenty-six times in the brief pages of these
Epistles. "If I will that he abide"--abide in the bark, in the Church,
in one spot, in life, in spiritual communion with Me. It is to be
remembered finally, that not only spiritual, but ecclesiastical
consolidation is attributed to St. John by the voice of history. He
occupied himself with the visitation of his Churches and the
development of Episcopacy. [18] So in the sunset of the Apostolic age
stands before us the mitred form of John the Divine. Early Christianity
had three successive capitals--Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus. Surely, so
long as St. John lived, men looked for a Primate of Christendom not at
Rome but at Ephesus.
How different were the two deaths! It was as if in His words our Lord
allowed His two Apostles to look into a magic glass, wherein one saw
dimly the hurrying feet, the prelude to execution which even the saint
wills not; the other the calm life, the gathered disciples, the quiet
sinking to rest. In the clear obscure of that prophecy we may discern
the outline of Peter's cross, the bowed figure of the saintly old man.
Let us be thankful that John "tarried." He has left the Church three
pictures that can never fade--in the Gospel the picture of Christ, in
the Epistles the picture of his own soul, in the Apocalypse the picture
of Heaven.
So far we have relied almost exclusively upon indications supplied by
Scripture. We now turn to Church history to fill in some particulars of
interest.
Ancient tradition unhesitatingly believed that the latter years of St.
John's prolonged life, were spent in the city of Ephesus, or province
of Asia Minor, with the Virgin-Mother, the sacred legacy from the
cross, under his fostering care for a longer or shorter portion of
those years. Manifestly he would not have gone to Ephesus during the
lifetime of St. Paul. Various circumstances point to the period of his
abode there as beginning a little after the fall of Jerusalem (A.D.
67). He lived on until towards the close of the first century of the
Christian era, possibly two years later (A.D. 102). With the date of
the Apocalypse we are not directly concerned, though we refer it to a
very late period in St. John's career, believing that the Apostle did
not return from Patmos until just after Domitian's death. The date of
the Gospel may be placed between A.D. 80 and 90. And the First Epistle
accompanied the Gospel, as we shall see in a subsequent discourse.
The Epistle then, like the Gospel, and contemporaneously with it, saw
the light in Ephesus, or in its vicinity. This is proved by three
pieces of evidence of the most unquestionable solidity.
(1) The opening chapters of the Apocalypse contain an argument, which
cannot be explained away, for the connection of St. John with Asia
Minor and with Ephesus. And the argument is independent of the
authorship of that wonderful book. Whoever wrote the Book of the
Revelation must have felt the most absolute conviction of St. John's
abode in Ephesus and temporary exile to Patmos. To have written with a
special view of acquiring a hold upon the Churches of Asia Minor, while
assuming from the very first as fact what they, more than any other
Churches in the world, must have known to be fiction, would have been
to invite immediate and contemptuous rejection. The three earliest
chapters of the Revelation are unintelligible, except as the real or
assumed utterance of a Primate (in later language) of the Churches of
Asia Minor. To the inhabitants of the barren and remote isle of Patmos,
Rome and Ephesus almost represented the world; their rocky nest among
the waters was scarcely visited except as a brief resting-place for
those who sailed from one of those great cities to the other, or for
occasional traders from Corinth.
(2) The second evidence is the fragment of the Epistle of Irenæus to
Florinus preserved in the fifth book of the Ecclesiastical History of
Eusebius. Irenæus mentions no dim tradition, appeals to no past which
was never present. He has but to question his own recollections of
Polycarp, whom he remembered in early life. "Where he sat to talk, his
way, his manner of life, his personal appearance, how he used to tell
of his intimacy with John, and with the others who had seen the Lord."
[19] Irenæus elsewhere distinctly says that "John himself issued the
Gospel while living at Ephesus in Asia Minor, and that he survived in
that city until Trajan's time." [20]
(3) The third great historical evidence which connects St. John with
Ephesus is that of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, who wrote a synodical
epistle to Victor and the Roman Church on the quartodeciman question,
toward the close of the second century. Polycrates speaks of the great
ashes which sleep in Asia Minor until the Advent of the Lord, when He
shall raise up His saints. He proceeds to mention Philip who sleeps in
Hierapolis; two of his daughters; a third who takes her rest in
Ephesus, and "John moreover, who leaned upon the breast of Jesus, who
was a high priest bearing the radiant plate of gold upon his forehead."
[21]
This threefold evidence would seem to render the sojourn of St. John at
Ephesus for many years one of the most solidly attested facts of
earlier Church history.
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It will be necessary for our purpose to sketch the general condition of
Ephesus in St. John's time.
A traveller coming from Antioch of Pisidia (as St. Paul did A.D. 54)
descended from the mountain chain which separates the Meander from the
Cayster. He passed down by a narrow ravine to the "Asian meadow"
celebrated by Homer. There, rising from the valley, partly running up
the slope of Mount Coressus, and again higher along the shoulder of
Mount Prion, the traveller saw the great city of Ephesus towering upon
the hills, with widely scattered suburbs. In the first century the
population was immense, and included a strange mixture of races and
religions. Large numbers of Jews were settled there, and seem to have
possessed a full religious organisation under a High Priest or Chief
Rabbi. But the prevailing superstition was the worship of the Ephesian
Artemis. The great temple, the priesthood whose chief seems to have
enjoyed a royal or quasi-royal rank, the affluence of pilgrims at
certain seasons of the year, the industries connected with objects of
devotion, supported a swarm of devotees, whose fanaticism was
intensified by their material interest in a vast religious
establishment. Ephesus boasted of being a theocratic city, the
possessor and keeper of a temple glorified by art as well as by
devotion. It had a civic calendar marked by a round of splendid
festivities associated with the cultus of the goddess. Yet the moral
reputation of the city stood at the lowest point, even in the
estimation of Greeks. The Greek character was effeminated in Ionia by
Asiatic manners, and Ephesus was the most dissolute city of Ionia. Its
once superb schools of art became infected by the ostentatious
vulgarity of an ever-increasing parvenu opulence. The place was chiefly
divided between dissipation and a degrading form of literature. Dancing
and music were heard day and night; a protracted revel was visible in
the streets. Lascivious romances whose infamy was proverbial were
largely sold and passed from hand to hand. Yet there were not a few of
a different character. In that divine climate, the very lassitude,
which was the reaction from excessive amusement and perpetual sunshine,
disposed many minds to seek for refuge in the shadows of a visionary
world. Some who had received or inherited Christianity from Aquila and
Priscilla, or from St. Paul himself, thirty or forty years before, had
contaminated the purity of the faith with inferior elements derived
from the contagion of local heresy, or from the infiltration of pagan
thought. The Ionian intellect seems to have delighted in imaginative
metaphysics; and for minds undisciplined by true logic or the training
of severe science imaginative metaphysics is a dangerous form of mental
recreation. The adept becomes the slave of his own formulæ, and drifts
into partial insanity by a process which seems to himself to be one of
indisputable reasoning. Other influences outside Christianity ran in
the same direction. Amulets were bought by trembling believers.
Astrological calculations were received with the irresistible
fascination of terror. Systems of magic, incantations, forms of
exorcism, traditions of theosophy, communications with demons--all that
we should now sum up under the head of spiritualism--laid their spell
upon thousands. No Christian reader of the nineteenth chapter of the
Acts of the Apostles will be inclined to doubt that beneath all this
mass of superstition and imposture there lay some dark reality of evil
power. At all events the extent of these practices, these "curious
arts" in Ephesus at the time of St. Paul's visit, is clearly proved by
the extent of the local literature which spiritualism put forth. The
value of the books of magic which were burned by penitents of this
class, is estimated by St. Luke at fifty thousand pieces of
silver--probably about thirteen hundred and fifty pounds of our money!
[22]
Let us now consider what ideas or allusions in the Epistles of St. John
coincide with, and fit into, this Ephesian contexture of life and
thought.
We shall have occasion in the third discourse to refer to forms of
Christian heresy or of semi-Christian speculation indisputably pointed
to by St. John, and prevalent in Asia Minor when the Apostle wrote. But
besides this, several other points of contact with Ephesus can be
detected in the Epistles before us. (1) The first Epistle closes with a
sharp decisive warning, expressed in a form which could only have been
employed when those who were addressed habitually lived in an
atmosphere saturated with idolatry, where the social temptations to
come to terms with idolatrous practices were powerful and ubiquitous.
This was no doubt true of many other places at the time, but it was
pre-eminently true of Ephesus. Certain of the Gnostic Christian sects
in Ionia held lax views about "eating things sacrificed unto idols,"
although fornication was a general accompaniment of such a compliance.
Two of the angels of the Seven Churches of Asia within the Ephesian
group--the angels of Pergamum and of Thyatira--receive especial
admonition from the Lord upon this subject. These considerations prove
that the command, "Children, guard yourselves from the idols," had a
very special suitability to the conditions of life in Ephesus. (2) The
population of Ephesus was of a very composite kind. Many were attracted
to the capital of Ionia by its reputation as the capital of the
pleasures of the world. It was also the centre of an enormous trade by
land and sea. Ephesus, Alexandria, Antioch and Corinth were the four
cities where at that period all races and all religions of civilised
men were most largely represented. Now the First Epistle of St. John
has a peculiar breadth in its representation of the purposes of God.
Christ is not merely the fulfilment of the hopes of one particular
people. The Church is not merely destined to be the home of a handful
of spiritual citizens. The Atonement is as wide as the race of man. "He
is the propitiation for the whole world;" "we have seen, and bear
witness that the Father sent the Son as Saviour of the world." [23] A
cosmopolitan population is addressed in a cosmopolitan epistle. (3) We
have seen that the gaiety and sunshine of Ephesus was sometimes
darkened by the shadows of a world of magic, that for some natures
Ionia was a land haunted by spiritual terrors. He must be a hasty
student who fails to connect the extraordinary narrative in the
nineteenth chapter of the Acts with the ample and awful recognition in
the Epistle to the Ephesians of the mysterious conflict in the
Christian life against evil intelligences, real, though unseen. [24]
The brilliant rationalist may dispose of such things by the convenient
and compendious method of a sneer. "Such narratives as that" (of St.
Paul's struggle with the exorcists at Ephesus) "are disagreeable little
spots in everything that is done by the people. Though we cannot do a
thousandth part of what St. Paul did, we have a system of physiology
and of medicine very superior to his." [25] Perhaps he had a system of
spiritual diagnosis very superior to ours. In the epistle to the Angel
of the Church of Thyatira, mention is made of "the woman Jezebel, which
calleth herself a prophetess," [26] who led astray the servants of
Christ. St. John surely addresses himself to a community where
influences precisely of this kind exist, and are recognised when he
writes,--"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits
whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into
the world.... Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God."
[27] The Church or Churches, which the First Epistle directly
contemplates, did not consist of men just converted. Its whole language
supposes Christians, some of whom had grown old and were "fathers" in
the faith, while others who were younger enjoyed the privilege of
having been born and brought up in a Christian atmosphere. They are
reminded again and again, with a reiteration which would be
unaccountable if it had no special significance, that the commandment
"that which they heard," "the word," "the message," is the same which
they "had from the beginning." [28] Now this will exactly suit the
circumstances of a Church like the Ephesian, to which another Apostle
had originally preached the Gospel many years before. [29]
On the whole, we have in favour of assigning these Epistles to Ionian
and Ephesian surroundings a considerable amount of external evidence.
The general characteristics of the First Epistle consonant with the
view of their origin which we have advocated are briefly these. (1) It
is addressed to readers who were encompassed by peculiar temptations to
make a compromise with idolatry. (2) It has an amplitude and generality
of tone which befitted one who wrote to a Church which embraced members
from many countries, and was thus in contact with men of many races and
religions. (3) It has a peculiar solemnity of reference to the
invisible world of spiritual evil and to its terrible influence upon
the human mind. (4) The Epistle is pervaded by a desire to have it
recognised that the creed and law of practice which it asserts is
absolutely one with that which had been proclaimed by earlier heralds
of the cross to the same community. Every one of these characteristics
is consistent with the destination of the Epistle for the Christians of
Ephesus in the first instance. Its polemical element, which we are
presently to discuss, adds to an accumulation of coincidences which no
ingenuity can volatilise away. The Epistle meets Ephesian
circumstances; it also strikes at Ionian heresies.
Aïa-so-Louk, [30] the modern name of Ephesus, appears to be derived
from two Greek words which speak of St. John the divine, the theologian
of the Church. As the memory of the Apostle haunts the city where he so
long lived, even in its fall and long decay under its Turkish
conquerors,--and the fatal spread of the malaria from the marshes of
the Cayster--so a memory of the place seems to rest in turn upon the
Epistle, and we read it more satisfactorily while we assign to it the
origin attributed to it by Christian antiquity, and keep that memory
before our minds.
__________________________________________________________________
[2] Cary's Dante, Paradiso, xxv. 117. Stanley's Sermons and Essays on
the Apostolic Age, 242.
[3] Apoc. ii. 24.
[4] John xiii. 30 cf. 1 John ii. 11.
[5] eskenosen en hemin.
[6] This characteristic of St. John's style is powerfully expressed by
the great hymn-writer of the Latin Church.
"Hebet sensus exors styli;
Stylo scribit tam subtili,
Fide tam catholicâ,
Ne de Verbo salutari
Posset quicquam refragari
Pravitas hæretica."
Adam of St. Victor, Seq. xxxii.
[7] John xii. 20-34, especially ver. 24.
[8] Acts i. 13.
[9] Acts iii. 4, v. 13, viii. 14.
[10] Gal. ii. 9.
[11] Acts iii. 4, v. 13, viii. 14. The singular and interesting
manuscript of Patmos (Ai periodoi tou theologou) attributed to St.
John's disciple, Prochorus, seems to recognise that St. John's chief
mission was not that of working miracles. Even in a kind of duel of
prodigies between him and the sinister magician of Patmos, the
following occurs. "Kynops asked a young man in the multitude where his
father then was. 'My father is dead,' he replied, 'he went down yonder
in a storm.' Turning to John, the magician said,--'Now then, bring up
this young man's father from the dead.' 'I have not come here,'
answered the Apostle, 'to raise the dead, but to deliver the living
from their errors.'"
[12] Gal. ii. 9; Acts xxi. 17, sqq.
[13] John xxi. 7.
[14] Ibid., vers. 17, 18, 19.
[15] The beginning of old age would account sufficiently for the
anticipation of death in 2 Peter i. 13, 14, 15.
[16] doxasei ver. 19. The lifelike shall (not should) is part of the
many minute but vivid touches which make the whole of this scene so
full of motion and reality--"I go a fishing" (ver. 3); "about two
hundred cubits" (ver. 8); the accurate aigialos (ver. 4. See Trench, On
Parables, 57; Stanley, Apostolic Age, 135).
[17] dioratikoteros. S. Joann. Chrysost.--Hom. in Joann.
[18] Euseb. H. E., iii. 23. See other quotations in Bilson, Government
of Christ's Church, p. 365.
[19] Ap. Euseb. H. E., v. 20.
[20] Adv. Hæres., lib. iii., ch. 1.
[21] hiereus to petalon pephorekos--"Pontifex ejus (sc. Domini) auream
laminam in fronte habens." So translated by S. Hieron. Lib. de Vir.
Illust., xlv. The petalon is the LXX. rendering of tsyts, the
projecting leaf or plate of radiant gold (Exod. xxviii. 26, xxxix. 30),
associated with the "mitre" (Lev. viii. 9). Whether Polycrates speaks
literally, or wishes to convey by a metaphor the impression of holiness
radiating from St. John's face, we probably cannot decide.
[22] Acts xix. 20, 21. In this description of Ephesus the writer has
constantly had in view the passages to which he referred in the
Speakers Commentary, N.T., iv., 274, 276. He has also studied M.
Renan's Saint Paul, chap, xii., and the authorities cited in the notes,
pp. 329, 350.
[23] St. John ii. 2, iv. 14.
[24] "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against," etc. Eph.
vi. 12-17.
[25] Saint Paul, Renan, 318, 319.
[26] For the almost certain reference here to the Chaldean Sybil
Sambethe, see Apoc ii. 20, Archdeacon Lee's note in Speaker's
Commentary, N.T., iv. 527, 534, 535, and Dean Blakesley (art. Thyatira,
Dict. of the Bible).
[27] 1 John iv. 1, 3.
[28] 1 John ii. 7, ii. 24, iii. 11; 2 John vv. 5, 6. The passage in ii.
24 is a specimen of that simple emphasis, that presentation of a truth
or duty under two aspects, which St. John often produces merely by an
inversion of the order of the words. "Ye--what ye heard from the
beginning let it abide in you. If what from the beginning ye heard
abide in you" (ho ekousate ap' arches ... ho ap' arches ekousate). The
emphasis in the first clause is upon the fact of their having heard the
message; in the second upon this feature of the message--that it was
given in the beginning of Christianity amongst them, and kept unchanged
until the present time. Cf. entole palaia (ii. 7) with archaios = "of
the early Christian time," in Polycarp, Ep. ad Philipp., i.
[29] Acts xviii. 18-21. To these general links connecting our Epistles
with Ephesus, a few of less importance, yet not without significance,
may be added. (1) The name of Demetrius (3 John 12) is certainly
suggestive of the holy city of the earth-mother (Acts xix. 24, 38).
Vitruvius assigns the completion of the temple of Ephesus to an
architect of the name, and calls him "servus Dianæ." (2) St. John in
his Gospel adopts, as if instinctively, the computation of time which
was used in Asia Minor (John iv. 6, xix. 4 -- Hefel. Martyrium S.
Polycarp. xxi.). On the same principle he speaks in the Apocalypse of
"day and night" (Apoc. iv. 8, vii. 15, xii. 10, xiv. 11, xx. 10); St.
Paul, on the other hand, speaks of "night and day" (1 Tim. v. 5). It is
a very real indication of the accuracy of the report of words in the
Acts that, while St. Luke himself uses either form indifferently (Luke
ii. 37, xviii. 2), St. Paul, as quoted by him, always says "night and
day" (Acts xx. 31, xxvi. 7). (3) Is it merely fanciful to conjecture
that the unusual agathopoion (3 John 11) may be an allusion to the
astrological language in which alone the term is ever used outside a
very few instances in the sacred writers? "He only is under a good
star, and has beneficent omens for his life." Balbillus, one of the
most famous astrologers of antiquity, the confidant of Nero and
Vespasian, was an Ephesian, and almost supreme in Ephesus, not long
before St. John's arrival there. Sueton., Neron., 36.
[30] Aïa-so-Louk, a corruption of hagios theologos, holy theologian (or
hagia theologou, holy city of the theologian). Some scholars, however,
assert that the word is often pronounced and written aiaslyk, with the
common Turkish termination lyk. See S. Paul (Renan, 342, note 2).
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE II.
THE CONNECTION OF THE EPISTLE WITH THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
Sunadusi men gar allelois to euangelion kai he epistole. Dionys.
Alexandr. ap Euseb., H. E., vii., 25.
"And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full."-- 1
John i. 4 .
From the wholesale burning of books at Ephesus, as a consequence of
awakened convictions, the most pregnant of all commentators upon the
New Testament has drawn a powerful lesson. "True religion," says the
writer, "puts bad books out of the way." Ephesus at great expense burnt
curious and evil volumes, and the "word of God grew and prevailed." And
he proceeds to show how just in the very matter where Ephesus had
manifested such costly penitence, she was rewarded by being made a sort
of depository of the most precious books which ever came from human
pens. St. Paul addresses a letter to the Ephesians. Timothy was Bishop
of Ephesus when the two great pastoral Epistles were sent to him. [31]
All St. John's writings point to the same place. The Gospel and
Epistles were written there, or with primary reference to the capital
of Ionia. [32] The Apocalypse was in all probability first read at
Ephesus.
Of this group of Ephesian books we select two of primary
importance--the Gospel and First Epistle of St. John. Let us dwell upon
the close and thorough connection of the two documents, upon the
interpenetration of the Epistle by the Gospel, by whatever name we may
prefer to designate the connection.
It is said indeed by a very high authority, that while the "whole
Epistle is permeated with thoughts of the person and work of Christ,"
yet "direct references to facts of the Gospel are singularly rare."
More particularly it is stated that "we find here none of the
foundation and (so to speak) crucial events summarised in the earliest
Christian confession as we still find them in the Apostles' creed." And
among these events are placed, "the Birth of the Virgin Mary, the
Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Session, the Coming
to Judgment."
To us there seems to be some exaggeration in this way of putting the
matter. A writing which accompanied a sacred history, and which was a
spiritual comment upon that very history, was not likely to repeat the
history upon which it commented, just in the same shape. Surely the
Birth is the necessary condition of having come in the flesh. The
incident of the piercing of the side, and the water and blood which
flowed from it, is distinctly spoken of; and in that the Crucifixion is
implied. Shrinking with shame from Jesus at His Coming, which is spoken
of in another verse, has no meaning unless that Coming be to Judgment.
[33] The sixth chapter is, if we may so say, the section of "the
Blood," in the fourth Gospel. That section standing in the Gospel,
standing in the great Sacrament of the Church, standing in the
perpetually cleansing and purifying efficacy of the Atonement--ever
present as a witness, which becomes personal, because identified with a
Living Personality [34] --finds its echo and counterpart in the Epistle
towards the beginning and near the close. [35]
We now turn to that which is the most conclusive evidence of connection
between two documents--one historical, the other moral and
spiritual--of which literary composition is capable. Let us suppose
that a writer of profound thoughtfulness has finished, after long
elaboration, the historical record of an eventful and many-sided
life--a life of supreme importance to a nation, or to the general
thought and progress of humanity. The book is sent to the
representatives of some community or school. The ideas which its
subject has uttered to the world, from their breadth and from the
occasional obscurity of expression incident to all great spiritual
utterances, need some elucidation. The plan is really exhaustive, and
combines the facts of the life with a full insight into their
relations; but it may be missed by any but thoughtful readers. The
author will accompany this main work by something which in modern
language we might call an introduction, or appendix, or advertisement,
or explanatory pamphlet, or encyclical letter. Now the ancient form of
literary composition rendered books packed with thought doubly
difficult both to read and write; for they did not admit foot-notes, or
marginal analyses, or abstracts. St. John then practically says, first
to his readers in Asia Minor, then to the Church for ever--"with this
life of Jesus I send you not only thoughts for your spiritual benefit,
moulded round His teaching, but something more; I send you an abstract,
a compendium of contents, at the beginning of this letter; I also send
you at its close a key to the plan on which my Gospel is conceived."
And surely a careful reader of the Gospel at its first publication
would have desired assistance exactly of this nature. He would have
wished to have a synopsis of contents, short but comprehensive, and a
synoptical view of the author's plan--of the idea which guided him in
his choice of incidents so momentous and of teaching so varied.
We have in the First Epistle two synopses of the Gospel which
correspond with a perfect precision to these claims. [36] We have: (1)
a synopsis of the contents of the Gospel; (2) a synoptical view of the
conception from which it was written.
1. We find in the Epistle at the very outset a synopsis of the contents
of the Gospel.
"That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that
which we have seen with our eyes, that which we gazed upon, and our
hands handled--I speak concerning the Word who is the Life--that which
we have seen and heard, declare we unto you also."
What are the contents of the Gospel? (1) A lofty and dogmatic
prooemium, which tells us of "the Word who was in the beginning with
God--in Whom was life." (2) Discourses and utterances, sometimes
running on through pages, sometimes brief and broken. (3) Works,
sometimes miraculous, sometimes wrought into the common contexture of
human life--looks, influences, seen by the very eyes of St. John and
others, gazed upon with ever deepening joy and wonder. (4) Incidents
which proved that all this issued from One who was intensely human;
that it was as real as life and humanity--historical not visionary; the
doing and the effluence of a Manhood which could be, and which was,
grasped by human hands.
Such is a synopsis of the Gospel precisely as it is given in the
beginning of the First Epistle. (1) The Epistle mentions first, "that
which was from the beginning." There is the compendium of the prooemium
of the Gospel. (2) One of the most important constituent parts of the
Gospel is to be found in its ample preservation of dialogues, in which
the Saviour is one interlocutor; of monologues spoken to the hushed
hearts of the disciples, or to the listening Heart of the Father, yet
not in tones so low that their love did not find it audible. This
element of the narrative is summed up by the writer of the Epistle in
two words--"That which we heard." [37] (3) The works of benevolence or
power, the doings and sufferings; the pathos or joy which spring up
from them in the souls of the disciples, occupy a large portion of the
Gospel. All these come under the heading, "that which we have seen with
our eyes, [38] that which we gazed upon," [39] with one unbroken gaze
of wonder as so beautiful, and of awe as so divine. [40] (4) The
assertion of the reality of the Manhood [41] of Him who was yet the
Life manifested--a reality through all His words, works,
sufferings--finds its strong, bold summary in this compendium of the
contents of the Gospel, "and our hands have handled." Nay, a still
shorter compendium follows: (1) The Life with the Father. (2) The Life
manifested. [42]
2. But we have more than a synopsis which embraces the contents of the
Gospel at the beginning of the Epistle. We have towards its close a
second synopsis of the whole framework of the Gospel; not now the
theory of the Person of Christ, which in such a life was necessarily
placed at its beginning, but of the human conception which pervaded the
Evangelist's composition.
The second synopsis, not of the contents of the Gospel, but of the aim
and conception which it assumed in the form into which it was moulded
by St. John, is given by the Epistle with a fulness which omits
scarcely a paragraph of the Gospel. In the space of six verses of the
fifth chapter the word witness, as verb or substantive, is repeated ten
times. [43] The simplicity of St. John's artless rhetoric can make no
more emphatic claim on our attention. The Gospel is indeed a tissue
woven out of many lines of evidence human and divine. Compress its
purpose into one single word. No doubt it is supremely the Gospel of
the Divinity of Jesus. But, next to that, it may best be defined as the
Gospel of Witness. These witnesses we may take in the order of the
Epistle. St. John feels that his Gospel is more than a book; it is a
past made everlastingly present. Such as the great Life was in history,
so it stands for ever. Jesus is "the propitiation, is righteous," "is
here." [44] So the great influences round His Person, the manifold
witnesses of His Life, stand witnessing for ever in the Gospel and in
the Church. What are these? (1) The Spirit is ever witnessing. So our
Lord in the Gospel--"when the Comforter is come, He shall witness of
Me." [45] No one can doubt that the Spirit is one pre-eminent subject
of the Gospel. Indeed, teaching about Him, above all as the witness to
Christ, occupies three unbroken chapters in one place. [46] (2) The
water is ever witnessing. So long as St. John's Gospel lasts, and
permeates the Church with its influence, the water must so testify.
There is scarcely a paragraph of it where water is not; almost always
with some relation to Christ. The witness of the Baptist [47] is, "I
baptize with water." The Jordan itself bears witness that all its
waters cannot give that which He bestows who is "preferred before"
John. [48] Is not the water of Cana that was made wine a witness to His
glory? [49] The birth of "water and of the Spirit," [50] is another
witness. And so in the Gospel section after section. The water of
Jacob's well; the water of the pool of Bethesda; the waters of the sea
of Galilee, with their stormy waves upon which He walked; the water
outpoured at the feast of tabernacles, with its application to the
river of living water; the water of Siloam; the water poured into the
basin, when Jesus washed the disciples' feet; the water which, with the
blood, streamed from the riven side upon the cross; the water of the
sea of Galilee in its gentler mood, when Jesus showed Himself on its
beach to the seven; as long as all this is recorded in the Gospel, as
long as the sacrament of Baptism, with its visible water and its
invisible grace working in the regenerate, abides among the
faithful;--so long is the water ever witnessing. [51] (3) The Blood is
ever "witnessing." Expiation once for all; purification continually
from the blood outpoured; drinking the blood of the Son of Man by
participation in the sacrament of His love, with the grace and strength
that it gives day by day to innumerable souls; the Gospel concentrated
into that great sacrifice; the Church's gifts of benediction summarised
in the unspeakable Gift; this is the unceasing witness of the Blood.
(4) Men are ever witnessing. "The witness of men" fills the Gospel from
beginning to end. The glorious series of confessions wrung from willing
and unwilling hearts form the points of division round which the whole
narrative may be grouped. Let us think of all those attestations which
lie between the Baptist's precious testimony with the sweet yet fainter
utterances of Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, and the perfect creed of
Christendom condensed into the burning words of Thomas--"my Lord and my
God." [52] What a range of feeling and faith; what a variety of
attestation coming from human souls, sometimes wrung from them half
unwillingly, sometimes uttered at crisis-moments with an impulse that
could not be resisted! The witness of men in the Gospel, and the
assurance of one testimony that was to be given by the Apostles
individually and collectively, [53] besides the evidences already named
includes the following--the witness of Nicodemus, of the Samaritan
woman, of the Samaritans, of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda,
of Simon Peter, of the officers of the Jewish authorities, of the blind
man, of Pilate. [54] (5) The witness of God occupies also a great
position in the fourth Gospel. That witness may be said to be given in
five forms: the witness of the Father, [55] of Christ Himself, [56] of
the Holy Spirit, [57] of Scripture, [58] of miracles. [59] This great
cloud of witnesses, human and divine, finds its appropriate completion
in another subjective witness. [60] The whole body of evidence passes
from the region of the intellectual to that of the moral and spiritual
life. The evidence acquires that evidentness which is to all our
knowledge what the sap is to the tree. The faithful carries it in his
heart; it goes about with him, rests with him day and night, is close
to him in life and death. He, the principle of whose being is belief
ever going out of itself and resting its acts of faith on the Son of
God, has all that manifold witness in him. [61]
It would be easy to enlarge upon the verbal connection between the
Epistle before us and the Gospel which it accompanied. We might draw
out (as has often been done) a list of quotations from the Gospel, a
whole common treasury of mystic language; but we prefer to leave an
undivided impression upon the mind. A document which gives us a
synopsis of the contents of another document at the beginning, and a
synoptical analysis of its predominant idea at the close, covering the
entire work, and capable of absorbing every part of it (except some
necessary adjuncts of a rich and crowded narrative), has a connection
with it which is vital and absorbing. The Epistle is at once an
abstract of the contents of the Gospel, and a key to its purport. To
the Gospel, at least to it and the Epistle considered as integrally
one, the Apostle refers when he says: "these things write we unto you."
[62]
St. John had asserted that one end of his declaration was to make his
readers hold fast "fellowship with us," i.e., with the Church as the
Apostolic Church; aye, and that fellowship of ours is "with the Father,
and with His Son Jesus Christ;" "and these things," he continues (with
special reference to his Gospel, as spoken of in his opening words),
"we write unto you, that your joy may be fulfilled."
There is as truly a joy as a "patience and comfort of the Scriptures."
The Apostle here speaks of "your joy," but that implied his also.
All great literature, like all else that is beautiful, is a "joy for
ever." To the true student his books are this. But this is so only with
a few really great books. We are not speaking of works of exact
science. Butler, Pascal, Bacon, Shakespeare, Homer, Scott, theirs is
work of which congenial spirits never grow quite tired. But to be
capable of giving out joy, books must have been written with it. The
Scotch poet tells us, that no poet ever found the Muse, until he had
learned to walk beside the brook, and "no think long." That which is
not thought over with pleasure; that which, as it gradually rises
before the author in its unity, does not fill him with delight; will
never permanently give pleasure to readers. He must know joy before he
can say--"these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full."
The book that is to give joy must be a part of a man's self. That is
just what most books are not. They are laborious, diligent, useful
perhaps; they are not interesting or delightful. How touching it is,
when the poor old stiff hand must write, and the overworked brain
think, for bread! Is there anything so pathetic in literature as Scott
setting his back bravely to the wall, and forcing from his imagination
the reluctant creations which used to issue with such splendid
profusion from its haunted chambers?
Of the conditions under which an inspired writer pursued his labours we
know but little. But some conditions are apparent in the books of St.
John with which we are now concerned. The fourth Gospel is a book
written without arrière pensée, without literary conceit, without the
paralysing dread of criticism. What verdict the polished society of
Ephesus would pronounce; what sneers would circulate in philosophic
quarters; what the numerous heretics would murmur in their
conventicles; what critics within the Church might venture to whisper,
missing perhaps favourite thoughts and catch-words; [63] St. John cared
no more than if he were dead. He communed with the memories of the
past; he listened for the music of the Voice which had been the teacher
of his life. To be faithful to these memories, to recall these words,
to be true to Jesus, was his one aim. No one can doubt that the Gospel
was written with a full delight. No one who is capable of feeling, ever
has doubted that it was written as if with "a feather dropped from an
angel's wing;" that without aiming at anything but truth, it attains in
parts at least a transcendent beauty. At the close of the prooemium,
after the completest theological formula which the Church has ever
possessed--the still, even pressure of a tide of thought--we have a
parenthetic sentence, like the splendid unexpected rush and swell of a
sudden wave ("we beheld the glory, the glory as of the Only-Begotten of
the Father"); then after the parenthesis a soft and murmuring fall of
the whole great tide ("full of grace and truth"). Can we suppose that
the Apostle hung over his sentence with literary zest? The number of
writers is small who can give us an everlasting truth by a single word,
a single pencil touch; who, having their mind loaded with thought, are
wise enough to keep that strong and eloquent silence which is the
prerogative only of the highest genius. St. John gives us one of these
everlasting pictures, of these inexhaustible symbols, in three little
words--"He then having received the sop, went immediately out, and it
was night." [64] Do we suppose that he admired the perfect effect of
that powerful self-restraint? Just before the crucifixion he
writes--"Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the
purple robe, and Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man!" [65] The
pathos, the majesty, the royalty of sorrow, the admiration and pity of
Pilate, have been for centuries the inspiration of Christian art. Did
St. John congratulate himself upon the image of sorrow and of beauty
which stands for ever in these lines? With St. John as a writer it is
as with St. John delineated in the fresco at Padua by the genius of
Giotto. The form of the ascending saint is made visible through a
reticulation of rays of light in colours as splendid as ever came from
mortal pencil; but the rays issue entirely from the Saviour, whose face
and form are full before him.
The feeling of the Church has always been that the Gospel of St. John
was a solemn work of faith and prayer. The oldest extant fragment upon
the canon of the New Testament tells us that the Gospel was undertaken
after earnest invitations from the brethren and the bishops, with
solemn united fasting; not without special revelation to Andrew the
Apostle that John was to do the work. [66] A later and much less
important document connected in its origin with Patmos embodies one
beautiful legend about the composition of the Gospel. It tells how the
Apostle was about to leave Patmos for Ephesus; how the Christians of
the island besought him to leave in writing an account of the
Incarnation, and mysterious life of the Son of God; how St. John and
his chosen friends went forth from the haunts of men about a mile, and
halted in a quiet spot called the gorge of Rest, [67] and then ascended
the mountain which overhung it. There they remained three days. "Then,"
writes Prochorus, "he ordered me to go down to the town for paper and
ink. And after two days I found him standing rapt in prayer. Said he to
me--'take the ink and paper, and stand on my right hand.' And I did so.
And there was a great lightning and thunder, so that the mountain
shook. And I fell on the ground as if dead. Whereupon John stretched
forth his hand and took hold of me, and said--'stand up at this spot at
my right hand.' After which he prayed again, and after his prayer said
unto me--'son Prochorus, what thou hearest from my mouth, write upon
the sheets.' And having opened his mouth as he was standing praying,
and looking up to heaven, he began to say--'in the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' And so
following on, he spake in order, standing as he was, and I wrote
sitting." [68]
True instinct which tells us that the Gospel of St. John was the fruit
of prayer as well as of memory; that it was thought out in some valley
of rest, some hush among the hills; that it came from a solemn joy
which it breathed forth upon others! "These things write I unto you,
that your joy may be fulfilled." Generation after generation it has
been so. In the numbers numberless of the Redeemed, there can be very
few who have not been brightened by the joy of that book. Still, at one
funeral after another, hearts are soothed by the word in it which
says--"I am the Resurrection and the Life." Still the sorrowful and the
dying ask to hear again and again--"let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid." A brave young officer sent to the war in
Africa, from a regiment at home, where he had caused grief by his
extravagance, penitent, and dying in his tent, during the fatal day of
Isandula, scrawled in pencil--"dying, dear father and
mother--happy--for Jesus says, 'He that cometh to Me I will in no wise
cast out.'" Our English Communion Office, with its divine beauty, is a
texture shot through and through with golden threads from the discourse
at Capernaum. Still are the disciples glad when they see the Lord in
that record. It is the book of the Church's smiles; it is the gladness
of the saints; it is the purest fountain of joy in all the literature
of earth.
Note A.
The thorough connection of the Epistle with the Gospel may be made more
clear by the following tabulated analysis:--
The (A) beginning and (B) the close of the Epistle contain two
abstracts, longer and shorter, of the contents and bearing of the
Gospel.
A.
i.--1 John i. 1.
1. "That which was from the beginning--concerning the Word of Life" =
John i. 1-15.
2. (a) "Which we have heard" = John i. 38, 39, 42, 47, 50, 51, ii. 4,
7, 8, 16, 19, iii. 3, 22, iv. 7, 39, 48, 50, v. 6, 47, vi. 5, 70, vii.
6, 39, viii. 7, 58, ix. 3, 41, x. 1, 39, xi. 4, 45, xii. 7, 50, xiii.
6, 38, xiv., xvii., xviii. 14, 37, xix. 11, 26, 27, 28, 30, xx. 15, 16,
17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 29, xxi. 5, 6, 10, 12, 22.
(b) "Which we have seen with our eyes" = John i. 29, 36, 39, ii. 11,
vi. 2, 14, 19, ix., xi. 44, xiii. 4, 5, xvii. 1, xviii. 6, xix. 5, 17,
18, 34, 38, xx. 5, 14, 20, 25, 29, xxi. 1, 14.
(c) "Which we gazed upon" = ibid.
(d) "Which we have handled" = John xx. 27 (refers also to a synoptical
Gospel, Luke xxiv. 39, 40).
ii.--1 John i. 2.
1. "The Life was manifested" = John i. 29--xxi. 25.
2. (a) "We have seen" = (A. i. 2 (b)).
(b) "And bear witness" = John i. 7, 19, 37, iii. 2, 27, 33, iv. 39, vi.
69, xx. 28, 30, 31, xxi. 24.
(c) "And declare unto you" = John passim.
"The Life, the Eternal Life, which"
' "Was with the Father" = John i. 1-4.
v "And was manifested unto us" = John passim.
B.
i.--1 John v. 6-10.
Summary of the Gospel as a Gospel of witness.
1. "The Spirit beareth witness" = John i. 32, xiv., xv., xx. 22.
2. "The water beareth witness" = John i. 28, ii. 9, iii. 5, iv. 13, 14,
v. 1, 9, vi. 19, vii. 37, ix. 7, xiii. 5, xix. 34, xxi. 1.
3. "The blood beareth witness" = John vi. 53, 54, 55, 56, xix. 34.
4. "The witness of men" = (A. ii. 1 (b)) Also John i. 45, 49, iii. 2,
iv. 39, vii. 46, xii. 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 21, xviii. 38, xix. 35, xx.
28.
5. "The witness of God" =
(a) Scripture = John i. 45, v. 39, 46, xix. 36, 37.
(b) Christ's own = John viii. 17, 18, 46, xviii. 37.
(c) His Father's = John v. 37, viii. 18, xii. 28.
(d) His works = John v. 36, x. 25, xv. 24.
ii.--1 John v. 20.
We know (i.e., by the Gospel) that--
1. "The Son of God is come" (heken), "has come and is here."
Note.--v'chy = heko, LXX. Psalm xl. 7. "Venio symbolum quasi Domini
Jesu fuit." (Bengel on Heb. x. 7), the Ich Dien of the Son of the
Father--ego gar ek tou theou exelthon kai heko. "I came forth from God,
and am here" (John viii. 4) = John i. 29--xxi. 23, (John xiv. 18, 21,
23, xvi. 16, 22, form part of the thought "is here").
2. "And hath given us an understanding" = gift of the Spirit, John
xiv., xv., xvi. (especially 13, 16).
3. "This is the very God and eternal Life" = John i. 1, 4.
The whole Gospel of St. John brings out these primary principles of the
Faith,--
That the Son of God has come. That He is now and ever present with His
people. That the Holy Spirit gives them a new faculty of spiritual
discernment. That Christ is the very God and the Life of men.
__________________________________________________________________
[31] Bengel, on Acts xix. 19, 20, finds a reference to manuscripts of
some of the synoptical Gospels and of the Epistles in 2 Tim. iv. 13,
and conjectures that, after St. Paul's martyrdom, Timothy carried them
with him to Ephesus.
[32] Renan's curious theory that Rom. xvi. 1-16 is a sheet of the
Epistle to the Ephesians accidentally misplaced, rests upon a supposed
prevalence of Ephesian names in the case of those who are greeted.
Archdeacon Gifford's refutation, and his solution of an unquestionable
difficulty, seems entirely satisfactory. (Speaker's Commentary, in
loc., vol. iii., New Testament.)
[33] It has become usual to say that the Epistle does not advert to
John iii. or John vi. To us it seems that every mention of the Birth of
God is a reference to John iii. (1 John ii. 23, iii. 9, iv. 7, v. 1-4.)
The word aima occurs once only in the fourth Gospel outside the sixth
chapter (xix. 34; for i. 13 belongs to physiology). Four times we find
it in that chapter--vi. 53, 54, 55, 56. Each mention of the "Blood" in
connection with our Lord does advert to John vi.
[34] The masc. part. oi marturountes is surely very remarkable with the
three neuters (to pneuma, to hudor, to aima) 1 John v. 7, 8.
[35] 1 John i. 7, v. 6, 8.
[36] See note A. at the end of this Discourse, which shows that there
are, in truth, four such summaries.
[37] ho akekoamen.
[38] ho eorakamen tois ophthalmois hemon.
[39] John xx. 20.
[40] ho etheasametha, 1 John i. 1. The same word is used in John i. 14.
[41] John xix. 27 would express this in the most palpable form. But it
is constantly understood through the Gospel. The tenacity of Doketic
error is evident from the fact that Chrysostom, preaching at Antioch,
speaks of it as a popular error in his day. A little later, orthodox
ears were somewhat offended by some beautiful lines of a Greek sacred
poet, too little known among us, who combines in a singular degree
Roman gravity with Greek grace. St. Romanus (A.D. 491) represents our
Lord as saying of the sinful woman who became a penitent,
ten brexasan ichne
ha ouk hebrexe buthos
psilois tote tois dakrusin.
"Which with her tears, then pure,
Wetted the feet the sea-depth wetted not."
(Spicil. Solesmen. Edidit T. B. Pitra, S. Romanus, xvi. 13, Cant. de
Passione. 120.)
[42] 1 John i. 2. The Life with the Father = John i. 1, 14. The Life
manifested = John i. 14 to end.
[43] The A.V. (1 John v. 6-12) obscures this by a too great
sensitiveness to monotony. The language of the verses is varied
unfortunately by "bear record" (ver. 7), "hath testified" (ver. 9),
"believeth not the record" (ver. 10), "this is the record" (ver. 11).
[44] 1 John ii. 2-29, iii. 7, iv. 3, v. 20.
[45] John xv. 26.
[46] John xiv., xv., xvi., Cf. vii. 39. The witness of the Spirit in
the Apostolic ministry will be found John xx. 22.
[47] John i. 19.
[48] John i. 16, 31, 33.
[49] John ii. 9, iv. 46.
[50] John iii. 5.
[51] John iv. 5, 7, 11, 12, , v. 1, 8, vi. 19, vii. 35, 37, ix. 7,
xiii. 1, 14, xix. 34, xxi. 1, 8. In the other great Johannic book water
is constantly mentioned. Apoc. vii. 17, xiv. 7, xvi. 5, xxi. 6, xxii.
1, xxii. 17. (Cf. the to hudor, Acts x. 47.)
[52] John i. 19, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 41, 45, 47, xix. 27.
[53] John xv. 27.
[54] John iii. 2. The Baptist's final witness (iii. 25, 33, iv. 39, 42,
v. 15, vi. 68, 69, vii. 46, xix. 4, 6). Note, too, the accentuation of
the idea of witness (John v. 31, 39). It is to be regretted that the
R.V. also has sometimes obscured this important term by substituting a
different English word, e.g., "the word of the woman who testified"
(John iv. 39).
[55] John viii. 18, xii. 28.
[56] Ibid. viii. 17, 18.
[57] Ibid. xv. 26.
[58] Ibid. v. 39, 46, xix. 35, 36, 37.
[59] Ibid. v. 36.
[60] This sixth witness (1 John v. 10) exactly answers to John xx. 30,
31.
[61] ho pisteuon eis ton uion, ktl (v. 10). The construction is
different in the words which immediately follow (ho me pisteuon to
theg), not even giving Him credence, not believing Him, much less
believing on Him.
[62] The view here advocated of the relation of the Epistle to the
Gospel of St. John, and of the brief but complete analytical synopsis
in the opening words of the Epistle, appears to us to represent the
earliest known interpretation as given by the author of the famous
fragment of the Muratorian Canon, the first catalogue of the books of
the N. T. (written between the middle and close of the second century).
After his statement of the circumstances which led to the composition
of the fourth Gospel, and an assertion of the perfect internal unity of
the Evangelical narratives, the author of the fragment proceeds. "What
wonder then if John brings forward each matter, point by point, with
such consecutive order (tam constanter singula), even in his Epistles
saying, when he comes to write in his own person (dicens in semetipso),
'what we have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears, and our
hands have handled, these things have we written.' For thus, in orderly
arrangement and consecutive language he professes himself not only an
eye-witness, but a hearer, and yet further a writer of the wonderful
things of the Lord." [So we understand the writer. "Sic enim non solum
visorem, sed et auditorem, sed et scriptorem omnium mirabilium Domini,
per ordinem profitetur." The fragment, with copious annotations, may be
found in Reliquæ Sacræ, Routh, Tom. i., 394, 434.]
[63] For whatever reason, four classical terms (if we may so call them)
of the Christian religion are excluded, or nearly excluded, from the
Gospel of St. John, and from its companion document. Church, gospel,
repentance, occur nowhere. Grace only once (John i. 14; see, however, 2
John 3; Apoc. i. 4; xxii. 21), faith as a substantive only once. (1
John v. 4, but in Apoc. ii. 13-19; xiii. 10; xiv. 12.)
[64] hen de nux. John xiii. 30.
[65] John xix. 5.
[66] Canon. Murator. (apud Routh., Reliq. Sacræ, Tom. i., 394).
[67] en topo hesucho legomeno katapausis.
[68] This passage is translated from the Greek text of the manuscript
of Patmos, attributed to Prochorus, as given by M. Guérin. (Description
de l'Isle de Patmos, pp. 25-29.)
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE III.
THE POLEMICAL ELEMENT IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
"Dum Magistri super pectus
Fontem haurit intellectûs
Et doctrinæ flumina,
Fiunt, ipso situ loci,
Verbo fides, auris voci,
Mens Deo contermina.
"Unde mentis per excessus,
Carnis, sensûs super gressus,
Errorumque nubila,
Contra veri solis lumen
Visum cordis et acumen
Figit velut aquila."
Adam of St. Victor, Seq. xxxii.
"Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh
is of God. Every spirit that confesseth not [that] Jesus Christ [is
come in the flesh] is not of God."--1 John iv. 2, 3.
A discussion (however far from technical completeness) of the polemical
element in St. John's Epistle, probably seems likely to be destitute of
interest or of instruction, except to ecclesiastical or philosophical
antiquarians. Those who believe the Epistle to be a divine book must,
however, take a different view of the matter. St. John was not merely
dealing with forms of human error which were local and fortuitous. In
refuting them he was enunciating principles of universal import, of
almost illimitable application. Let us pass by those obscure sects,
those subtle curiosities of error, which the diligence of minute
research has excavated from the masses of erudition under which they
have been buried; which theologians, like other antiquarians, have
sometimes labelled with names at once uncouth and imaginative. Let us
fix our attention upon such broad and well-defined features of heresy
as credible witnesses have indelibly fixed upon the contemporaneous
heretical thought of Asia Minor; and we shall see not only a great
precision in St. John's words, but a radiant image of truth, which is
equally adapted to enlighten us in the peculiar dangers of our age.
Controversy is the condition under which all truth must be held, which
is not in necessary subject-matter--which is not either mathematical or
physical. In the case of the second, controversy is active, until the
fact of the physical law is established beyond the possibility of
rational discussion; until self-consistent thought can only think upon
the postulate of its admission. Now in these departments all the
argument is on one side. We are not in a state of suspended
speculation, leaning neither to affirmation nor denial, which is doubt.
We are not in the position of inclining either to one side or the
other, by an almost impalpable overplus of evidence, which is
suspicion; or by those additions to this slender stock, which convert
suspicion into opinion. We are not merely yielding a strong adhesion to
one side, while we must yet admit, to ourselves at least, that our
knowledge is not perfect, nor absolutely manifest--which is the mental
and moral position of belief. In necessary subject-matter, we know and
see with that perfect intellectual vision for which controversy is
impossible. [69]
The region of belief must therefore, in our present condition, be a
region from which controversy cannot be excluded.
Religious controversialists may be divided into three classes, for each
of which we may find an emblem in the animal creation. The first are
the nuisances, at times the numerous nuisances, of Churches. These
controversialists delight in showing that the convictions of persons
whom they happen to dislike, can, more or less plausibly, be pressed to
unpopular conclusions. They are incessant fault-finders. Some of them,
if they had an opportunity, might delight in finding the sun guilty in
his daily worship of the many-coloured ritualism of the western clouds.
Controversialists of this class, if minute are venomous, and capable of
inflicting a degree of pain quite out of proportion to their strength.
Their emblem may be found somewhere in the range of "every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth." The second class of
controversialists is of a much higher nature. Their emblem is the hawk
with his bright eye, with the forward throw of his pinions, his rushing
flight along the woodland skirt, his unerring stroke. Such hawks of the
Churches, whose delight is in pouncing upon fallacies, fulfil an
important function. They rid us of tribes of mischievous winged errors.
The third class of controversialists is that which embraces St. John
supremely--such minds also as Augustine's in his loftiest and most
inspired moments, such as those which have endowed the Church with the
Nicene Creed. Of such the eagle is the emblem. Over the grosser
atmosphere of earthly anger or imperfect motives, over the clouds of
error, poised in the light of the True Sun, with the eagle's upward
wing and the eagle's sunward eye, St. John looks upon the truth. He is
indeed the eagle of the four Evangelists, the eagle of God. If the
eagle could speak with our language, his style would have something of
the purity of the sky and of the brightness of the light. He would warn
his nestlings against losing their way in the banks of clouds that lie
below him so far. At times he might show that there is a danger or an
error whose position he might indicate by the sweep of his wing, or by
descending for a moment to strike.
There are then polemics in the Epistle and in the Gospel of St. John.
But we refuse to hunt down some obscure heresy in every sentence. It
will be enough to indicate the master heresy of Asia Minor, to which
St. John undoubtedly refers, with its intellectual and moral perils. In
so doing, we shall find the very truth which our own generation
especially needs.
The prophetic words addressed by St. Paul to the Church of Ephesus
thirty years before the date of this Epistle had found only too
complete a fulfilment. "From among their own selves," at Ephesus in
particular, through the Churches of Asia Minor in general, men had
arisen "speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after
them." [70] The prediction began to justify itself when Timothy was
Bishop of Ephesus only five or six years later. A few significant words
in the First Epistle to Timothy let us see the heretical influences
that were at work. St. Paul speaks with the solemnity of a closing
charge when he warns Timothy against what were at once [71] "profane
babblings," and "antitheses of the Gnosis which is falsely so called."
In an earlier portion of the same Epistle the young Bishop is exhorted
to charge certain men not to teach a "different doctrine," neither to
give "heed to myths and genealogies," out of whose endless mazes no
intellect entangled in them can ever find its way. [72] Those
commentators put us on a false scent who would have us look after
Judaizing error, Jewish "stemmata." The reference is not to Judaistic
ritualism, but to semi-Pagan philosophical speculation. The
"genealogies" are systems of divine potencies which the Gnostics (and
probably some Jewish Rabbis of Gnosticising tendency) called "æons,"
[73] and so the earliest Christian writers understood the word.
Now without entering into the details of Gnosticism, this may be said
of its general method and purpose. It aspired at once to accept and to
transform the Christian creed; to elevate its faith into a philosophy,
a knowledge--and then to make this knowledge cashier and supersede
faith, love, holiness, redemption itself.
This system was strangely eclectic, and amalgamated certain elements
not only of Greek and Egyptian, but of Persian and Indian Pantheistic
thought. It was infected throughout with dualism and doketism. Dualism
held that all good and evil in the universe proceeded from two first
principles, good and evil. Matter was the power of evil whose home is
in the region of darkness. Minds which started from this fundamental
view could only accept the Incarnation provisionally and with reserve,
and must at once proceed to explain it away. "The Word was made flesh;"
but the Word of God, the True Light, could not be personally united to
an actual material system called a human body, plunged in the world of
matter, darkened and contaminated by its immersion. The human flesh in
which Jesus appeared to be seen was fictitious. Redemption was a drama
with a shadow for its hero. The phantom of a redeemer was nailed to the
phantom of a cross. Philosophical dualism logically became theological
doketism. Doketism logically evaporated dogmas, sacraments, duties,
redemption. [74]
It may be objected that this doketism has been a mere temporary and
local aberration of the human intellect; a metaphysical curiosity, with
no real roots in human nature. If so, its refutation is an obsolete
piece of an obsolete controversy; and the Epistle in some of its most
vital portions is a dead letter.
Now of course literal doketism is past and gone, dead and buried. The
progress of the human mind, the slow and resistless influence of the
logic of common sense, the wholesome influence of the sciences of
observation in correcting visionary metaphysics, have swept away æons,
emanations, dualism, [75] and the rest. But a subtler, and to modern
minds infinitely more attractive, doketism is round us, and accepted,
as far as words go, with a passionate enthusiasm.
What is this doketism?
Let us refer to the history and to the language of a mind of singular
subtlety and power.
In George Eliot's early career she was induced to prepare for the press
a translation of Strauss's mythical explanation of the Life of Jesus.
It is no disrespect to so great a memory to say, that at that period of
her career, at least, Miss Evans must have been unequal to grapple with
such a work, if she desired to do so from a Christian point of view.
She had not apparently studied the history or the structure of the
Gospels. What she knew of their meaning she had imbibed from an
antiquated and unscientific school of theologians. The faith of a
sciolist engaged in a struggle for its life with the fatal strength of
a critical giant instructed in the negative lore of all ages, and
sharpened by hatred of the Christian religion, met with the result
which was to be expected. Her faith expired, not without some painful
throes. She fell a victim to the fallacy of youthful conceit--I cannot
answer this or that objection, therefore it is unanswerable. She wrote
at first that she was "Strauss-sick." It made her ill to dissect the
beautiful story of the crucifixion. She took to herself a consolation
singular in the circumstances. The sight of an ivory crucifix, and of a
pathetic picture of the Passion, made her capable of enduring the first
shock of the loss which her heart had sustained. That is, she found
comfort in looking at tangible reminders of a scene which had ceased to
be an historical reality, of a sufferer who had faded from a living
Redeemer into the spectre of a visionary past. After a time, however,
she feels able to propose to herself and others "a new starting point.
We can never have a satisfactory basis for the history of the man
Jesus, but that negation does not affect the Idea of the Christ, either
in its historical influence, or its great symbolic meanings." [76] Yes!
a Christ who has no history, of whom we do not possess one undoubted
word, of whom we know, and can know, nothing; who has no flesh of fact,
no blood of life; an idea, not a man; this is the Christ of modern
doketism. The method of this widely diffused school is to separate the
sentiments of admiration which the history inspires from the history
itself; to sever the ideas of the faith from the facts of the faith,
and then to present the ideas thus surviving the dissolvents of
criticism, as at once the refutation of the facts and the substitute
for them.
This may be pretty writing, though false and illogical writing is
rarely even that; but a little consideration will show that this new
starting point is not even a plausible substitute for the old belief.
(1) We question simple believers in the first instance. We ask them
what is the great religious power in Christianity for themselves, and
for others like-minded? What makes people pure, good, self-denying,
nurses of the sick, missionaries to the heathen? They will tell us that
the power lies, not in any doketic idea of a Christ-life which was
never lived, but in "the conviction that that idea was really and
perfectly incarnated in an actual career," [77] of which we have a
record literally and absolutely true in all essential particulars. When
we turn to the past of the Church, we find that as it is with these
persons, so it has ever been with the saints. For instance, we hear St.
Paul speaking of his whole life. He tells us that "whether we went out
of ourselves it was unto God, or whether we be sober, it is for you;"
that is to say, such a life has two aspects, one God-ward, one
man-ward. Its God-ward aspect is a noble insanity, its man-ward aspect
a noble sanity; the first with its beautiful enthusiasm, the second
with its saving common sense. What is the source of this? "For the love
of Christ constraineth us,"--forces the whole stream of life to flow
between these two banks without the deviations of selfishness--"because
we thus judge, that He died for all, that they which live should no
longer live unto themselves, but to Him who for their sakes died and
rose again." [78] It was the real unselfish life of a real unselfish
Man which made such a life as that of St. Paul a possibility. Or we may
think of the first beginning of St. John's love for our Lord. When he
turned to the past, he remembered one bright day about ten in the
morning, when the real Jesus turned to him and to another with a real
look, and said with a human voice, "what seek ye?" and then--"come, and
ye shall see." [79] It was the real living love that won the only kind
of love which could enable the old man to write as he did in this
Epistle so many years afterwards--"we love because He first loved us."
[80]
(2) We address ourselves next to those who look at Christ simply as an
ideal. We venture to put to them a definite question. You believe that
there is no solid basis for the history of the man Jesus; that His life
as an historical reality is lost in a dazzling mist of legend and
adoration. Has the idea of a Christ, divorced from all accompaniment of
authentic fact, unfixed in a definite historical form, uncontinued in
an abiding existence, been operative or inoperative for yourselves? Has
it been a practical power and motive, or an occasional and evanescent
sentiment? There can be no doubt about the answer. It is not a
make-belief but a belief which gives purity and power. It is not an
ideal of Jesus but the blood of Jesus which cleanseth us from all sin.
There are other lessons of abiding practical importance to be drawn
from the polemical elements in St. John's Epistle. These, however, we
can only briefly indicate because we wish to leave an undivided
impression of that which seems to be St. John's chief object
controversially. There were Gnostics in Asia Minor for whom the mere
knowledge of certain supposed spiritual truths was all in all, as there
are those amongst ourselves who care for little but what are called
clear views. For such St. John writes--"and hereby we do know that we
know Him, if we keep His commandments." [81] There were heretics in and
about Ephesus who conceived that the special favour of God, or the
illumination which they obtained by junction with the sect to which
they had "gone out" from the Church, neutralised the poison of sin, and
made innocuous for them that which might have been deadly for others.
They suffered, as they thought, no more contamination by it, than "gold
by lying upon the dunghill" (to use a favourite metaphor of their own).
St. John utters a principle which cleaves through every fallacy in
every age, which says or insinuates that sin subjective can in any case
cease to be sin objective. "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also
the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. All unrighteousness
is sin." [82] Possibly within the Church itself, certainly among the
sectarians without it, there was a disposition to lessen the glory of
the Incarnation, by looking upon the Atonement as narrow and partial in
its aim. St. John's unhesitating statement is that "He is the
propitiation for the whole world." Thus does the eagle of the Church
ever fix his gaze above the clouds of error, upon the Sun of universal
truth.
Above all, over and through his negation of temporary and local errors
about the person of Christ, St. John leads the Church in all ages to
the true Christ. Cerinthus, in a form which seems to us eccentric and
revolting, proclaimed a Jesus not born of a virgin, temporarily endowed
with the sovereign power of the Christ, deprived of Him before his
passion and resurrection, while the Christ remained spiritual and
impassible. He taught a commonplace Jesus. At the beginning of his
Epistle and Gospel, John "wings his soul, and leads his readers onward
and upward." He is like a man who stands upon the shore and looks upon
town and coast and bay. Then another takes the man off with him far to
sea. All that he surveyed before is now lost to him; and as he gazes
ever oceanward, he does not stay his eye upon any intervening object,
but lets it range over the infinite azure. So the Apostle leads us
above all creation, and transports us to the ages before it; makes us
raise our eyes, not suffering us to find any end in the stretch above,
since end is none. [83] That "in the beginning," "from the beginning,"
of the Epistle and Gospel, includes nothing short of the eternal God.
The doketics of many shades proclaimed an ideological, a misty Christ.
"Every spirit which confesseth Jesus Christ as in flesh having come is
of God, and every spirit which confesseth not Jesus, is not of God."
"Many deceivers have gone out into the world, they who confess not
Jesus Christ coming in flesh." [84] Such a Christ of mist as these
words warn us against is again shaped by more powerful intellects and
touched with tenderer lights. But the shadowy Christ of George Eliot
and of Mill is equally arraigned by the hand of St. John. Each believer
may well think within himself--I must die, and that, it may be, very
soon; I must be alone with God, and my own soul; with that which I am,
and have been; with my memories, and with my sins. In that hour the
weird desolate language of the Psalmist will find its realisation:
"lover and friend hast thou put from me, and mine acquaintance
are--darkness." [85] Then we want, and then we may find, a real
Saviour. Then we shall know that if we have only a doketic Christ, we
shall indeed be alone--for "except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man,
and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." [86]
NOTE.
The two following extracts, in addition to what has been already said
in this discourse, will supply the reader with that which it is most
necessary for him to know upon the heresies of Asia Minor. 1. "Two
principal heresies upon the nature of Christ then prevailed, each
diametrically opposite to the other, as well as to the Catholic faith.
One was the heresy of the Doketæ, which destroyed the verity of the
Human Nature in Christ; the other was the heresy of the Ebionites, who
denied the Divine Nature, and the eternal Generation, and inclined to
press the observation of the ceremonial law. Ancient writers allow
these as heresies of the first century; all admit that they were
powerful in the age of Ignatius. Hence Theodoret (Prooem.) divided the
books of these heresies into two categories. In the first he included
those who put forward the idea of a second Creator, and asserted that
the Lord had appeared illusively. In the second he placed those who
maintained that the Lord was merely a man. Of the first, Jerome
observed (Adv. Lucifer. xxiii.) 'that while the Apostles yet remained
upon the earth, while the blood of Christ was almost smoking upon the
sod of Judæa, some asserted that the body of the Lord was a phantom.'
Of the second, the same writer remarked that 'St. John, at the
invitation of the bishops of Asia Minor, wrote his Gospel against
Cerinthus and other heretics--and especially against the dogma of the
Ebionites then rising into existence, who asserted that Christ did not
exist before Mary.' Epiphanius notes that these heresies were mainly of
Asia Minor (phemi de en te' Asia). Hæres. lvi." (Pearson, Vindic.
Ignat., ii., c. i., p. 351.)
2. "Two of these sects or schools are very ancient, and seem to have
been referred to by St. John. The first is that of the Naassenians or
Ophites. The antiquity of this sect is guaranteed to us by the author
of the Philosophumena, who represents them as the real founders of
Gnosticism. "Later," he says, "they were called Gnostics, pretending
that they only knew the depths." (To this allusion is made Apoc. ii.
24, which would identify these sectaries with the Balaamites and
Nicolaitans.) The second of these great heresies of Asia Minor is the
doketic. The publication of the Philosophumena has furnished us with
much more precise information about their tenets. We need not say much
about the divine emanation--the fall of souls into matter, their
corporeal captivity, their final rehabilitation (these are merely the
ordinary Gnostic ideas). But we may follow what they assert about the
Saviour and His manifestation in the world. They admit in Him the only
Son of the Father (ho monogenes pais anothen aionios), who descended to
the reign of shadows and the Virgin's womb, where He clothed Himself in
a gross, human material body. But this was a vestment of no integrally
personal and permanent character; it was, indeed, a sort of masquerade,
an artifice or fiction imagined to deceive the prince of this world.
The Saviour at His baptism received a second birth, and clad Himself
with a subtler texture of body, formed in the bosom of the waters--if
that can be termed a body which was but a fantastic texture woven or
framed upon the model of His earthly body. During the hours of the
Passion, the flesh formed in Mary's womb, and it alone, was nailed to
the tree. The great Archon or Demiurgus, whose work that flesh was, was
played upon and deceived, in pouring His wrath only upon the work of
His hands. For the soul, or spiritual substance, which had been wounded
in the flesh of the Saviour, extricated itself from this as from an
unmeet and hateful vesture; and itself contributing to nailing it to
the cross, triumphed by that very flesh over principalities and powers.
It did not, however, remain naked, but clad in the subtler form which
it had assumed in its baptismal second birth (Philosoph., viii. 10).
What is remarkable in this theory is, first, the admission of the
reality of the terrestrial body, formed in the Virgin's womb, and then
nailed to the cross. The negation is only of the real and permanent
union of this body with the heavenly spirit which inhabits it. We
shall, further, note the importance which it attaches to the Saviour's
baptism, and the part played by water, as if an intermediate element
between flesh and spirit. This may bear upon 1 John v. 8."
[This passage is from a Dissertation--les Trois Témoins Célestes, in a
collection of religious and literary papers by French scholars (Tom.
ii., Sept. 1868, pp. 388-392). The author, since deceased, was the Abbé
Le Hir, M. Renan's instructor in Hebrew at Saint Sulpice, and
pronounced by his pupil one of the first of European Hebraists and
scientific theologians.]
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[69] "Proprium est credentis ut cum assensu cogitet." "The intellect of
him who believes assents to the thing believed, not because he sees
that thing either in itself or by logical reference to first
self-evident principles; but because it is so far convinced by Divine
authority as to assent to things which it does not see, and on account
of the dominance of the will in setting the intellect in motion." This
sentence is taken from a passage of Aquinas which appears to be of
great and permanent value. Summa Theolog. 2^a, 2^æ quæst. i. art. 4.
quæst. v. art. 2.
[70] Acts xx. 30.
[71] tas bebelous kenophonias, kai antitheseis tes pseudonumou gnoseos.
1 Tim. vi. 20. The "antitheses" may either touch with slight sarcasm
upon pompous pretensions to scientific logical method; or may denote
the really self-contradictory character of these elaborate
compositions; or again, their polemical opposition to the Christian
creed.
[72] muthois kai genealogiais aperantois. 1 Tim. i. 3, 4.
[73] Irenæus quotes 1 Tim. i. 4, and interprets it of the Gnostic
'æons.' Adv. Hæres., i. Prooem.
[74] Few phenomena of criticism are more unaccountable than the desire
to evade any acknowledgment of the historical existence of these
singular heresies. Not long after St. John's death, Polycarp, in
writing to the Philippians, quotes 1 John iv. 3, and proceeds to show
that doketism had consummated its work down to the last fibres of the
root of the creed, by two negations--no resurrection of the body, no
judgment. (Polycarp, Epist. ad Philip., vii.) Ignatius twice deals with
the Doketæ at length. To the Trallians he delivers what may be called
an antidoketic creed, concluding in the tone of one who was wounded by
what he was daily hearing. "Be deaf then when any man speaks unto you
without Jesus Christ, who is of Mary, who truly was born, truly
suffered under Pontius Pilate, truly was crucified and died, truly also
was raised from the dead. But if some who are unbelieving say that He
suffered apparently, as if in vision, being visionary themselves, why
am I a prisoner? why do I choose to fight with wild beasts?" (Ignat.,
Ep. ad Trall., iv. x.) The play upon the name doketæ cannot be mistaken
(legousin to dokein peponthenai auton, autoi ontes to dokein). Ignatius
writes to another Church--"What profited it me if one praiseth me but
blasphemeth my Lord, not confessing that He bears true human flesh.
They abstain from Eucharist and prayer, because they confess not that
the Eucharist is flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ." (Ep. ad Smyrn., v.
vi. vii.)
[75] The elder Mr. Mill, however, appears to have seriously leaned to
this as a conceivable solution of the contradictory phenomena of
existence.
[76] Life vol. ii., 359, 360.
[77] Much use has here been made of a truly remarkable article in the
Spectator, Jan. 31st, 1885.
[78] 2 Cor. v. 13-15.
[79] John i. 43.
[80] 1 John iv. 19.
[81] 1 John ii. 3.
[82] 1 John iii. 4, v. 17.
[83] Every one who reads Greek should refer to the magnificent passage,
S. Joann. Chrysos., in Joann., Homil. ii. 4.
[84] 1 John iv. 2; 2 John 7. See notes on the passages.
[85] Psalm lxxxviii. 18.
[86] John vi. 53.
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DISCOURSE IV.
THE IMAGE OF ST. JOHN'S SOUL IN HIS EPISTLE.
"He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the king
shall be his friend."--Prov. xxii. 11
ho themelios.... ho deuteros sappheiros.--Apoc. xxi. 19.
"We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is
begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him
not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in
wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given
us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, and we are in
Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God
and eternal life."--1 John v. 18-20.
Much has been said in the last few years of a series of subtle and
delicate experiments in sound. Means have been devised of doing for the
ear something analogous to that which glasses do for another sense, and
of making the results palpable by a system of notation. We are told
that every tree for instance, according to its foliage, its position,
and the direction of the winds, has its own prevalent note or tone,
which can be marked down, and its timbre made first visible by this
notation, and then audible. So is it with the souls of the saints of
God, and chiefly of the Apostles. Each has its own note, the prevalent
key on which its peculiar music is set. Or we may employ another image
which possibly has St. John's own authority. Each of the twelve has his
peculiar emblem among the twelve vast and precious foundation stones
which underlie the whole wall of the Church. St. John may thus differ
from St. Peter, as the sapphire's azure differs from the jasper's
strength and radiance. Each is beautiful, but with its own
characteristic tint of beauty. [87]
We propose to examine the peculiarities of St. John's spiritual nature
which may be traced in this Epistle. We try to form some conception of
the key on which it is set, of the colour which it reflects in the
light of heaven, of the image of a soul which it presents. In this
attempt we cannot be deceived. St. John is so transparently honest; he
takes such a deep, almost terribly severe view of truth. We find him
using an expression about truth which is perhaps without a parallel in
any other writer. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk
in darkness we lie, and are not doing the truth." [88] The truth then
for him is something co-extensive with our whole nature and whole life.
Truth is not only to be spoken--that is but a fragmentary manifestation
of it. It is to be done. It would have been for him the darkest of lies
to have put forth a spiritual commentary on his Gospel which was not
realised in himself. In the Epistle, no doubt, he uses the first person
singular sparingly, modestly including himself in the simple we of
Christian association. Yet we are as sure of the perfect accuracy of
the picture of his soul, of the music in his heart which he makes
visible and audible in his letter, as we are that he heard the voice of
many waters, and saw the city coming down from God out of heaven; as
sure, as if at the close of this fifth chapter he had added with the
triumphant emphasis of truth, in his simple and stately way, "I John
heard these things and saw them." [89] He closes this letter with a
threefold affirmation of certain primary postulates of the Christian
life; of its purity, [90] of its privilege [91] , of its Presence, [92]
--"we know," "we know," "we know." In each case the plural might be
exchanged for the singular. He says "we know," because he is sure "I
know."
In studying the Epistles of St. John we may well ask what we see and
hear therein of St. John's character, (1) as a sacred writer, (2) as a
saintly soul.
I.
We consider first the indications in the Epistle of the Apostle's
character as a sacred writer.
For help in this direction we do not turn with much satisfaction to
essays or annotations pervaded by the modern spirit. The textual
criticism of minute scholarship is no doubt much, but it is not all.
Aorists are made for man, not man for the aorist. He indeed who has not
traced every fibre of the sacred text with grammar and lexicon cannot
quite honestly claim to be an expositor of it. But in the case of a
book like Scripture this, after all, is but an important preliminary.
The frigid subtlety of the commentator who always seems to have the
questions for a divinity examination before his eyes, fails in the glow
and elevation necessary to bring us into communion with the spirit of
St. John. Led by such guides, the Apostle passes under our review as a
third-rate writer of a magnificent language in decadence, not as the
greatest of theologians and masters of the spiritual life--with
whatever defects of literary style, at once the Plato of the twelve in
one region, and the Aristotle in the other; the first by his "lofty
inspiration," the second by his "judicious utilitarianism." The deepest
thought of the Church has been brooding for seventeen centuries over
these pregnant and many-sided words, so many of which are the very
words of Christ. To separate ourselves from this vast and beautiful
commentary is to place ourselves out of the atmosphere in which we can
best feel the influence of St. John.
Let us read Chrysostom's description of the style and thought of the
author of the fourth Gospel. "The son of thunder, the loved of Christ,
the pillar of the Churches, who leaned on Jesus' bosom, makes his
entrance. He plays no drama, he covers his head with no mask. Yet he
wears array of inimitable beauty. For he comes having his feet shod
with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, and his loins girt, not
with fleece dyed in purple, or bedropped with gold, but woven through
and through with, and composed of, the truth itself. He will now appear
before us, not dramatically, for with him there is no theatrical effect
or fiction, but with his head bared he tells the bare truth. All these
things he will speak with absolute accuracy, being the friend of the
King Himself--aye, having the King speaking within him, and hearing all
things from Him which He heareth from the Father; as He saith--'you I
have called friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father, I
have made known unto you.' Wherefore, as if we all at once saw one
stooping down from yonder heaven, and promising to tell us truly of
things there, we should all flock to listen to him, so let us now
dispose ourselves. For it is from up there that this man speaks down to
us. And the fisherman is not carried away by the whirling current of
his own exuberant verbosity; but all that he utters is with the
steadfast accuracy of truth, and as if he stood upon a rock he budges
not. All time is his witness. Seest thou the boldness, and the great
authority of his words! how he utters nothing by way of doubtful
conjecture, but all demonstratively, as if passing sentence. Very lofty
is this Apostle, and full of dogmas, and lingers over them more than
over other things!" [93] This admirable passage, with its fresh and
noble enthusiasm, nowhere reminds us of the glacial subtleties of the
schools. It is the utterance of an expositor who spoke the language in
which his master wrote, and breathed the same spiritual atmosphere. It
is scarcely less true of the Epistle than of the Gospel of St. John.
Here also "he is full of dogmas," here again he is the theologian of
the Church. But we are not to estimate the amount of dogma merely by
the number of words in which it is expressed. Dogma, indeed, is not
really composed of isolated texts--as pollen showered from conifers and
germs scattered from mosses, accidentally brought together and
compacted, are found upon chemical analysis to make up certain lumps of
coal. It is primary and structural. The Divinity and Incarnation of
Jesus pervade the First Epistle. Its whole structure is Trinitarian.
[94] It contains two of the three great three-word dogmatic utterances
of the New Testament about the nature of God (the first being in the
fourth Gospel)--"God is Spirit," "God is light," "God is love." The
chief dogmatic statements of the Atonement are found in these few
chapters. "The blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin." "We
have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." "He is
the propitiation for the whole world." "God loved us, and sent His Son
the propitiation for our sins." Where the Apostle passes on to deal
with the spiritual life, he once more "is full of dogmas," i.e., of
eternal self-evidenced oracular sentences, spoken as if "down from
heaven," or by one "whose foot is upon a rock,"--apparently identical
propositions, all-inclusive, the dogmas of moral and spiritual life, as
those upon the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, are of strictly
theological truth. A further characteristic of St. John as a sacred
writer in his Epistle is, that he appears to indicate throughout the
moral and spiritual conditions which were necessary for receiving the
Gospel with which he endowed the Church as the life of their life.
These conditions are three. The first is spirituality, submission to
the teaching of the Spirit, that they may know by it the meaning of the
words of Jesus--the "anointing" of the Holy Ghost, which is ever
"teaching all things" that He said. [95] The second condition is
purity, at least, the continuing effort after self-purification which
is incumbent even upon those who have received the great pardon. [96]
This involves the following in life's daily walk of the One perfect
life-walk, [97] the imitation of that which is supremely good, [98]
"incarnated in an actual earthly career." All must be purity, or effort
after purity, on the side of those who would read aright the Gospel of
the immaculate Lamb of God. The third condition for such readers is
love--charity. When he comes to deal fully with that great theme, the
eagle of God wheels far out of sight. In the depths of His Eternal
Being, "God is love." [99] Then this truth comes closer to us as
believers. It stands completely and for ever manifested in its work in
us, [100] because "God hath sent" (a mission in the past, but with
abiding consequences) [101] "His Son, His only-begotten Son into the
world, that we may live through Him." Yet again, he rises higher from
the manifestation of this love to the eternal and essential principle
in which it stands present for ever. "In this is the love, not that we
loved God, but that God loved us, and once for all sent His Son a
propitiation for our sins." [102] Then follows the manifestation of our
love. "If God so loved us, we also are bound to love one another." Do
we think it strange that St. John does not first draw the lesson--"if
God so loved us, we also are bound to love God"? It has been in his
heart all along, but he utters it in his own way, in the solemn
pathetic question--"he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
God whom he hath not seen how can he love?" [103] Yet once more he sums
up the creed in a few short words. "We have believed the love that God
hath in us." [104] Truly and deeply has it been said that this creed of
the heart, suffused with the softest tints and sweetest colours, goes
to the root of all heresies upon the Incarnation, whether in St. John's
time or later. That God should give up His Son by sending Him forth in
humanity; that the Word made flesh should humble Himself to the death
upon the cross, the Sinless offer Himself for sinners, this is what
heresy cannot bring itself to understand. It is the excess of such love
which makes it incredible. "We have believed the love" is the whole
faith of a Christian man. It is St. John's creed in three words. [105]
Such are the chief characteristics of St. John as a sacred writer,
which may be traced in his Epistle. These characteristics of the author
imply corresponding characteristics of the man. He who states with such
inevitable precision, with such noble and self-contained enthusiasm,
the great dogmas of the Christian faith, the great laws of the
Christian life, must himself have entirely believed them. He who
insists upon these conditions in the readers of his Gospel, must
himself have aimed at, and possessed, spirituality, purity, and love.
II.
We proceed to look at the First Epistle as a picture of the soul of its
author.
(1) His was a life free from the dominion of wilful and habitual sin of
any kind. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, and he cannot
continue sinning." "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not; whosoever
sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him." A man so entirely true,
if conscious to himself of any reigning sin, dare not have deliberately
written these words.
(2) But if St. John's was a life free from subjection to any form of
the power of sin, he shows us that sanctity is not sinlessness, in
language which it is alike unwise and unsafe to attempt to explain
away. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." "If we say
that we have not sinned and are not sinners, we make Him a liar." But
so long as we do not fall back into darkness, the blood of Jesus is
ever purifying us from all sin. This he has written that the fulness of
the Christian life may be realised in believers; that each step of
their walk may follow the blessed footprints of the most holy life;
that each successive act of a consecrated existence may be free from
sin. [106] And yet, if any fail in some such single act, [107] if he
swerve, for a moment, from the "true tenour" of the course which he is
shaping, there is no reason to despair. Beautiful humility of this pure
and lofty soul! How tenderly, with what lowly graciousness he places
himself among those who have and who need an Advocate. "Mark John's
humility," cries St. Augustine; "he says not 'ye have,' nor 'ye have
me,' nor even 'ye have Christ.' But he puts forward Christ, not
himself; and he says 'we have,' not 'ye have,' thus placing himself in
the rank of sinners." [108] Nor does St. John cover himself under the
subterfuges by which men at different times have tried to get rid of a
truth so humiliating to spiritual pride--sometimes by asserting that
they so stand accepted in Christ that no sin is accounted to them for
such; sometimes by pleading personal exemption for themselves as
believers.
This Epistle stands alone in the New Testament in being addressed to
two generations--one of which after conversion had grown old in a
Christian atmosphere, whilst the other had been educated from the
cradle under the influences of the Christian Church. It is therefore
natural that such a letter should give prominence to the constant need
of pardon. It certainly does not speak so much of the great initial
pardon, [109] as of the continuing pardons needed by human frailty. In
dwelling upon pardon once given, upon sanctification once begun, men
are possibly apt to forget the pardon that is daily wanting, the
purification that is never to cease. We are to walk daily from pardon
to pardon, from purification to purification. Yesterday's surrender of
self to Christ may grow ineffectual if it be not renewed to-day. This
is sometimes said to be a humiliating view of the Christian life.
Perhaps so--but it is the view of the Church, which places in its
offices a daily confession of sin; of St. John in this Epistle; nay, of
Him who teaches us, after our prayers for bread day by day, to pray for
a daily forgiveness. This may be more humiliating, but it is safer
teaching than that which proclaims a pardon to be appropriated in a
moment for all sins past, present, and to come.
This humility may be traced incidentally in other regions of the
Christian life. Thus he speaks of the possibility at least of his being
among those who might "shrink with shame from Christ in His coming." He
does not disdain to write as if, in hours of spiritual depression,
there were tests by which he too might need to lull and "persuade his
heart before God." [110]
(3) St. John again has a boundless faith in prayer. It is the key put
into the child's hand by which he may let himself into the house, and
come into his Father's presence when he will, at any hour of the night
or day. And prayer made according to the conditions which God has laid
down is never quite lost. The particular thing asked for may not indeed
be given; but the substance of the request, the holier wish, the better
purpose underlying its weakness and imperfection, never fails to be
granted. [111]
(4) All but superficial readers must perceive that in the writings and
character of St. John there is from time to time a tonic and wholesome
severity. Art and modern literature have agreed to bestow upon the
Apostle of love the features of a languid and inert tenderness. It is
forgotten that St. John was the son of thunder; that he could once wish
to bring down fire from heaven; and that the natural character is
transfigured not inverted by grace. The Apostle uses great plainness of
speech. For him a lie is a lie, and darkness is never courteously
called light. He abhors and shudders at those heresies which rob the
soul first of Christ, and then of God. [112] Those who undermine the
Incarnation are for him not interesting and original speculators, but
"lying prophets." He underlines his warnings against such men with his
roughest and blackest pencil mark. "Whoso sayeth to him 'good speed'
hath fellowship with his works, those wicked works" [113] --for such
heresy is not simply one work, but a series of works. The schismatic
prelate or pretender Diotrephes may "babble;" but his babblings are
wicked words for all that, and are in truth the "works which he is
doing."
The influence of every great Christian teacher lasts long beyond the
day of his death. It is felt in a general tone and spirit, in a special
appropriation of certain parts of the creed, in a peculiar method of
the Christian life. This influence is very discernible in the remains
of two disciples of St. John, [114] Ignatius and Polycarp. In writing
to the Ephesians, Ignatius does not indeed explicitly refer to St.
John's Epistle, as he does to that of St. Paul to the Ephesians. But he
draws in a few bold lines a picture of the Christian life which is
imbued with the very spirit of St. John. The character which the
Apostle loved was quiet and real; we feel that his heart is not with
"him that sayeth." [115] So Ignatius writes--"it is better to keep
silence, and yet to be, than to talk and not to be. It is good to teach
if 'he that sayeth doeth.' He who has gotten to himself the word of
Jesus truly is able to hear the silence of Jesus also, so that he may
act through that which he speaks, and be known through the things
wherein he is silent. Let us therefore do all things as in His presence
who dwelleth in us, that we may be His temple, and that He may be in us
our God." This is the very spirit of St. John. We feel in it at once
his severe common sense and his glorious mysticism.
We must add that the influence of St. John [116] may be traced in
matters which are often considered alien to his simple and spiritual
piety. It seems that Episcopacy was consolidated and extended under his
fostering care. The language of Ignatius (probably his disciple) upon
the necessity of union with the Episcopate is, after all conceivable
deductions, of startling strength. A few decades could not possibly
have removed Ignatius so far from the lines marked out to him by St.
John as he must have advanced, if this teaching upon Church government
was a new departure. And with this conception of Church government we
must associate other matters also. The immediate successors of St.
John, who had learned from his lips, held deep sacramental views. The
Eucharist is "the bread of God, the bread of heaven, the bread of life,
the flesh of Christ." Again Ignatius cries--"desire to use one
Eucharist, for one is the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup
unto oneness of His blood, one altar, as one Bishop, with the
Presbytery and deacons." [117] Hints are not wanting that sweetness and
life in public worship derived inspiration from the same quarter. The
language of Ignatius is deeply tinged with his passion for music. [118]
The beautiful story, how he set down, immediately after a vision, the
melody to which he had heard the angels chanting, and caused it to be
used in his church at Antioch, attests the impression of enthusiasm and
care for sacred song which was associated with the memory of Ignatius.
[119] Nor can we be surprised at these features of Ephesian
Christianity, when we remember who was the founder of those Churches.
He was the writer of three books. These books come to us with a
continuous living interpretation of more than seventeen centuries of
historical Christianity. From the fourth Gospel in large measure has
arisen the sacramental instinct, from the Apocalypse the æsthetic
instinct, which has been certainly exaggerated both in the East and
West. The third and sixth chapters of St. John's Gospel permeate every
baptismal and eucharistic office. Given an inspired book which
represents the worship of the redeemed as one of perfect majesty and
beauty, men may well in the presence of noble churches and stately
liturgies, adopt the words of our great English Christian poet--
"things which shed upon the outward frame
Of worship glory and grace--which who shall blame
That ever look'd to heaven for final rest?"
The third book in this group of writings supplies the sweet and quiet
spirituality which is the foundation of every regenerate nature.
Such is the image of the soul which is presented to us by St. John
himself. It is based upon a firm conviction of the nature of God, of
the Divinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement of our Lord. It is
spiritual. It is pure, or being purified. The highest theological
truth--"God is Love"--supremely realised in the Holy Trinity, supremely
manifested in the sending forth of God's only Son, becomes the law of
its common social life, made visible in gentle patience, in giving and
forgiving. [120] Such a life will be free from the degradation of
habitual sin. Yet it is at best an imperfect representation of the one
perfect life. [121] It needs unceasing purification by the blood of
Jesus, the continual advocacy of One who is sinless. Such a nature,
however full of charity, will not be weakly indulgent to vital error or
to ambitious schism; [122] for it knows the value of truth and unity.
It feels the sweetness of a calm conscience, and of a simple belief in
the efficacy of prayer. Over every such life--over all the grief that
may be, all the temptation that must be--is the purifying hope of a
great Advent, the ennobling assurance of a perfect victory, the
knowledge that if we continue true to the principle of our new birth we
are safe. And our safety is, not that we keep ourselves, but that we
are kept by arms which are as soft as love, and as strong as eternity.
[123]
These Epistles are full of instruction and of comfort for us, just
because they are written in an atmosphere of the Church which, in one
respect at least, resembles our own. There is in them no reference
whatever to a continuance of miraculous powers, to raptures, or to
extraordinary phenomena. All in them which is supernatural continues
even to this day, in the possession of an inspired record, in
sacramental grace, in the pardon and holiness, the peace and strength
of believers. The apocryphal "Acts of John" contain some fragments of
real beauty almost lost in questionable stories and prolix declamation.
It is probably not literally true that when St. John in early life
wished to make himself a home, his Lord said to him, "I have need of
thee, John;" that that thrilling voice once came to him, wafted over
the still darkened sea--"John, hadst thou not been Mine, I would have
suffered thee to marry." [124] But the Epistle shows us much more
effectually that he had a pure heart and virgin will. It is scarcely
probable that the son of Zebedee ever drained a cup of hemlock with
impunity; but he bore within him an effectual charm against the poison
of sin. [125] We of this nineteenth century may smile when we read that
he possessed the power of turning leaves into gold, of transmuting
pebbles into jewels, of fusing shattered gems into one; but he carried
with him wherever he went that most excellent gift of charity, which
makes the commonest things of earth radiant with beauty. [126] He may
not actually have praised his Master during his last hour in words
which seem to us not quite unworthy even of such lips--"Thou art the
only Lord, the root of immortality, the fountain of incorruption. Thou
who madest our rough wild nature soft and quiet, who deliveredst me
from the imagination of the moment, and didst keep me safe within the
guard of that which abideth for ever." But such thoughts in life or
death were never far from him for whom Christ was the Word and the
Life; who knew that while "the world passeth away and the lust thereof,
he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." [127]
May we so look upon this image of the Apostle's soul in his Epistle
that we may reflect something of its brightness! May we be able to
think, as we turn to this threefold assertion of knowledge--"I know
something of the security of this keeping. [128] I know something of
the sweetness of being in the Church, that isle of light surrounded by
a darkened world. [129] I know something of the beauty of the perfect
human life recorded by St. John, something of the continued presence of
the Son of God, something of the new sense which He gives, that we may
know Him who is the Very God." [130] Blessed exchange not to be vaunted
loudly, but spoken reverently in our own hearts--the exchange of we,
for I. There is much divinity in these pronouns. [131]
NOTES.
Note A.
1 John iv. 8, 9, 10. Modern theological schools of a Calvinistic bias
have tended to overlook the conception of the nature of God as
essential or substantive Love, and to consider love only as manifested
in redemption. Socinianising interpreters understand the proposition to
mean that God is simply and exclusively benevolent. (On the inadequacy
of this, see Butler, Anal., Part I., ch. iii., and Dissertation II. of
the Nature of Virtue.) The highest Christian thought has ever
recognised that the proposition 'God is Love' necessarily involves the
august truth that God if sole is not solitary. ("Credimur et confitemur
omnipotentem Trinitatem--unum Deum solum non solitarium." Concil.
Tolet., vi. 1.) "Let it not be supposed," said St. Bernard, "that I
here account Love as an attribute or accident, but as the Divine
essence--no new doctrine, seeing that St. John saith 'God is love.' It
may rightly be said both that Love is God, and that love is the gift of
God. For Love gives love; the essential Love gives that which is
accidental. When Love signifies the Giver, it is the name of His
essence; when it signifies His gift, it is the name of a quality or
attribute." (S. Bernard., de dil. Deo, xii.). "This is nobly said. God
is love. Thus love is the eternal law whereby all things were created
and are governed--wherewith He who is the law of all things is unto
Himself His own law, and that a law of love--wherewith He bindeth His
Trinity into Unity." (Thomassin. Dogm. Theol., lib. iii., 23.)
Note B.
he rhiza tes athanasias kai he pege tes aphtharsias; ho ten eremon kai
agriotheisan phusin hemon eremon kai hesuchion poiesas, ho tes
proskairou phantasias rhusamenos me kai eis ten aei menousan phrouresas
(Acta Johannis, 21). These sentences are surely not without freshness
and power. One other passage is worth translating, because it seems to
have just that imaginative cast which makes the Greek Liturgies, like
so much else that is Greek, stand midway between the East and West; and
because it apparently refers to St. John's Gospel. "Jesus! Thou who
hast woven this coronal with Thy plaiting, who hast blended these many
flowers into the flower of Thy presence, not blown through by the winds
of any storm; Thou who hast scattered thickly abroad the seed of these
words of Thine"--(Acta Johannis, 17).
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[87] Apoc. xxi. 19, 20.
[88] 1 John i. 6, cf. John iii. 21. In the LXX. the phrase is only
found once, and is then applied to God: aletheian epoiesas (Neh. ix.
33). It is characteristic of St. John's style that doing a lie is found
in Apoc. xxi. 27, xxii. 15.
[89] Apoc. xxii. 8.
[90] 1 John v. 18.
[91] Ibid. 19.
[92] hekei, "has come,--and is here."--Ibid. 20.
[93] S. Joann. Chrysost., in Johan., Homil. iii., Tom. viii., 25, 36,
Edit. Migne.
[94] Huther, while rejecting with all impartial critics the
interpolation (1 John v. 7), writes thus: "when we embrace in one
survey the contents of the Epistle as a whole, it is certainly easy to
adapt the conception of the three Heavenly witnesses to one place after
another in the document. But it does not follow that the mention of it
just here would be in its right place." (Handbuch über der drei Briefe
des Johannes. Dr. J. E. Huther.)
[95] 1 John ii. 20.
[96] 1 John i. 7, iii. 3.
[97] 1 John ii. 6.
[98] "Imitate not that which is evil, but that which is good" (3 John
12). A comparison of this verse with John xxi. 24 would lead to the
supposition that the writer of the letter is quoting the Gospel, and
assumes an intimate knowledge of it on the part of Caius. See Discourse
XVII. Part ii. of this vol.
[99] See note A at the end of this discourse.
[100] 1 John iv. 9.
[101] apestalken.
[102] apesteilen.
[103] 1 John iv. 20.
[104] 1 John iv. 16.
[105] pepisteukamen ten agapen, 1 John iv. 16.
[106] For the aor. conj. in this place as distinguished from the pres.
conj. cf. John v. 20, 23, vi. 28, 29, 30. Professor Westcott's refined
scholarship corrects the error of many commentators, "that the Apostle
is simply warning us not to draw encouragement for license from the
doctrine of forgiveness." The tense is decisive against this, the
thought is of the single act not of the state.
[107] ean tis hamarte, 1 John ii. 1.
[108] In Epist. Johann., Tract. I.
[109] 1 John ii. 12, is, of course, an important exception.
[110] 1 John iii. 19, 20.
[111] See Prof. Westcott's valuable note on 1 John v. 15. The very
things literally asked for would be ta aitethenta, not ta aitemata.
[112] 2 John 11.
[113] 3 John 10.
[114] Mart. Ignat., i. S. Hieron, de Script. Eccles., xvii.
[115] ho legon, 1 John ii. 4, 6, 9.
[116] Ignat. Epist. ad Ephes., xv., cf. 1 John ii. 14, iv. 9, 17, iii.
2.
[117] S. Ignat. Epist. ad Philad., iv.; cf. Epist. ad Smyrn., vii.;
Epist. ad Ephes., xx.
[118] The most elaborate passage in the Ignatian remains is probably
this. "Your Presbytery is fitted together harmoniously with the Bishop
as chords with the cithara. Hereby in your symphonious love Jesus
Christ is sung in concord. Taking your part man by man become one
choir, that being harmoniously accordant in your like-mindedness,
having received in unity the chromatic music of God (chroma Theou
labontes), ye may sing with one voice through Jesus Christ unto the
Father."--Epist. ad Ephes., iv. The same image is differently applied,
Epist. ad Philad., i.
[119] The story is given by Socrates. (H. E., vi. 8.)
[120] 1 John iv. 7, 12.
[121] 1 John ii. 6, 9, i. 7-10, ii. 1, 2.
[122] 1 John i. 7, ii. 2, iv. 3, 6; 2 John 7-11; 3 John 9, 10.
[123] 1 John iii. 19, 14, 15, iv. 2, 3, v. 4, 5, 18.
[124] These sentences do not go so far as the mischievous and
antiscriptural legend of later ascetic heretics, who marred the beauty
and the purpose of the miracle at Cana, by asserting that John was the
bridegroom, and that our Lord took him away from his bride. Acta
Johannis, XXI. Act. Apost. Apoc., Tisch., 275).
[125] This legend no doubt arose from the promise--"if they drink any
deadly thing it shall not hurt them" (Mark xvi. 18).
"Virus fidens sorbuit." Adam of St. Victor, Seq. XXXIII.
[126]
"Aurum hic de frondibus,
Gemmas de silicibus,
Fractis de fragminibus,
Fecit firmas."--Ibid.
There is something interesting in the persistency of legends about St.
John's power over gems, when connected with the passage, flashing all
over with the light of precious stones, whose exquisite disposition is
the wonder of lapidaries. Apoc. xxi. 18, 22.
[127] See note B at the end of the Discourse.
[128] 1 John v. 18.
[129] Ibid. v. 19.
[130] Ibid. v. 20.
[131] Said by Luther of Psalm xxii. 1.
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PART II.
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[Pg 74]
[Pg 75]
SOME GENERAL RULES FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
I. Subject Matter.
(1) The Epistle is to be read through with constant reference to the
Gospel. In what precise form the former is related to the latter
(whether as a preface or as an appendix, as a spiritual commentary or
an encyclical) critics may decide. But there is a vital and constant
connection. The two documents not only touch each other in thought, but
interpenetrate each other; and the Epistle is constantly suggesting
questions which the Gospel only can answer, e.g., 1 John i. 1, cf. John
i. 1-14; 1 John v. 9, "witness of men," cf. John i. 15-36, 41, 45, 49,
iii. 2, 27-36, iv. 29-42, vi. 68, 69, vii. 46, ix. 38, xi. 27, xviii.
38, xix. 5, 6, xx. 28.
(2) Such eloquence of style as St. John possesses is real rather than
verbal. The interpreter must look not only at the words themselves, but
at that which precedes and follows; above all he must fix his attention
not only upon the verbal expression of the thought, but upon the
thought itself. For the formal connecting link is not rarely omitted,
and must be supplied by the devout and candid diligence of the reader.
The "root below the stream" can only be traced by our bending over the
water until it becomes translucent to us.
E.g. 1 John i. 7, 8. Ver. 7, "the root below the stream" is a question
of this kind, which naturally arises from reading ver. 6--"must it be
said that the sons of light need a constant cleansing by the blood of
Jesus, which implies a constant guilt"? Some such thought is the latent
root of connection. The answer is supplied by the following verse. ["It
is so" for] "if we say that we have no sin," etc. Cf. also iii. 16, 17,
iv. 8, 9, 10, 11, v. 3 (ad. fin.), 4.
II. Language.
1. Tenses.
In the New Testament generally tenses are employed very much in the
same sense, and with the same general accuracy, as in other Greek
authors. The so-called "enallage temporum," or perpetual and convenient
Hebraism, has been proved by the greatest Hebrew scholars to be no
Hebraism at all. But it is one of the simple secrets of St. John's
quiet thoughtful power, that he uses tenses with the most rigorous
precision.
(a) The Present of continuing uninterrupted action, e.g., i. 8, ii. 6,
iii. 7, 8, 9.
Hence the so-called substantized participle with article ho has in St.
John the sense of the continuous and constitutive temper and conduct of
any man, the principle of his moral and spiritual life--e.g., ho legon,
he who is ever vaunting, ii. 4; pas ho mison, every one the abiding
principle of whose life is hatred, iii. 15; pas ho agapon, every one
the abiding principle of whose life is love, iv. 7.
The Infin. Present is generally used to express an action now in course
of performing or continued in itself or in its results, or frequently
repeated--e.g., 1 John ii. 6, iii. 8, 9, v. 18. (Winer, Gr. of N. T.
Diction, Part 3, xliv., 348).
(b) The Aorist.
This tense is generally used either of a thing occurring only once,
which does not admit, or at least does not require, the notion of
continuance and perpetuity; or of something which is brief and as it
were only momentary in duration (Stallbaum, Plat. Enthyd., p. 140).
This limitation or isolation of the predicated action is most
accurately indicated by the usual form of this tense in Greek. The
aorist verb is encased between the augment e- past time, and the
adjunct s- future time, i.e., the act is fixed on within certain limits
of previous and consequent time (Donaldson, Gr. Gr., 427, B. 2). The
aorist is used with most significant accuracy in the Epistle of St.
John, e.g., ii. 6, 11, 27, iv. 10, v. 18.
(c) The Perfect.
The Perfect denotes action absolutely past which lasts on in its
effects. "The idea of completeness conveyed by the aorist must be
distinguished from that of a state consequent on an act, which is the
meaning of the perfect" (Donaldson, Gr. Gr., 419). Careful observation
of this principle is the key to some of the chief difficulties of the
Epistle (iii. 9, v. 4, 18).
(2) The form of accessional parallelism is to be carefully noticed. The
second member is always in advance of the first; and a third is
occasionally introduced in advance of the second, denoting the highest
point to which the thought is thrown up by the tide of thought, e.g., 1
John ii. 4, 5, 6, v. 11, v. 20.
(3) The preparatory touch upon the chord which announces a theme to be
amplified afterwards,--e.g., ii. 29, iii. 9--iv. 7, v. 3, 4; iii.
21--v. 14, ii. 20, iii. 24, iv. 3, v. 6, 8, ii. 13, 14, iv. 4--v. 4, 5.
(4) One secret of St. John's simple and solemn rhetoric consists in an
impressive change in the order in which a leading word is used, e.g., 1
John ii. 24, iv. 20.
These principles carefully applied will be the best commentary upon the
letter of the Apostle, to whom not only when his subject is--
"De Deo Deum verum
Alpha et Omega, Patrem rerum";
but when he unfolds the principles of our spiritual life, we may apply
Adam of St. Victor's powerful and untranslatable line,
"Solers scribit idiota."
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SECTION I.
GREEK TEXT. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER
RENDERING.
Ho HeN ap' arches, ho akekoamen, ho heorakamen tois ophthalmois hemon,
ho etheasametha, kai ai cheires hemon epselaphesan peri tou logou tes
zoes; kai he zoe ephanerothe, kai heorakamen, kai marturoumen, kai
apangellomen humin ten zoen ten aionion, hetis en pros ton patera, kai
ephanerothe hemin; ho heorakamen kai akekoamen, apangellomen humin,
hina kai humeis koinonian echete meth' hemon; kai he koinonia de he
hemetera meta tou patros kai meta tou uiou autou Iesou Christou; kai
tauta graphomen humin, hina he chara humon he pepleromene.
Quod fuit ab initio, quod audivimus, et vidimus oculis nostris, quod
perspeximus, et manus nostræ temtaverunt, de Verbo vitæ; et vita
manifestata est, et vidimus et testamur, et adnuntiamus vobis vitam
æternam, quæ erat apud Patrem, et apparuit nobis: quod vidimus et
audivimus, et adnuntiamus vobis, ut et vos societatem habeatis
nobiscum, et societas nostra sit cum Patre, et Filio eius Iesu Christo.
Et hæc scripsimus vobis ut gaudium nostrum sit plenum.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have
handled, of the Word of Life; (for the life was manifested, and we have
seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which
was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) that which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship
with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son
Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be
full.
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which
we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands
handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and
we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the
eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us);
that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye
also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the
Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ: and these things we write, that
our joy may be fulfilled.
That which was ever from the beginning, that which we have heard, that
which we have seen with our eyes, that which we gazed upon, and our
hands handled--I speak concerning the Word who is the Life--and the
Life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare
unto you the life, the eternal life, as being that which was ever with
the Father, and was manifested unto us: that which we have seen and
heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us:
yea, and that fellowship, which is our fellowship, is with the Father
and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that
your joy may be fulfilled.
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DISCOURSE I.
ANALYSIS AND THEORY OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.
"Of the Word of Life."--1 John i. 1.
In the opening verses of this Epistle we have a sentence whose ample
and prolonged prelude has but one parallel in St. John's writings.
[132] It is, as an old divine says, "prefaced and brought in with more
magnificent ceremony than any passage in Scripture."
The very emotion and enthusiasm with which it is written, and the
sublimity of the exordium as a whole, tends to make the highest sense
also the most natural sense. Of what or of whom does St. John speak in
the phrase "concerning the Word of Life," or "the Word who is the
Life"? The neuter "that which" is used for the masculine--"He
who"--according to St. John's practice of employing the neuter
comprehensively when a collective whole is to be expressed. The phrase
"from the beginning," taken by itself, might no doubt be employed to
signify the beginning of Christianity, or of the ministry of Christ.
But even viewing it as entirely isolated from its context of language
and circumstance, it has a greater claim to be looked upon as from
eternity or from the beginning of the creation. Other considerations
are decisive in favour of the last interpretation.
(1) We have already adverted to the lofty and transcendental tone of
the whole passage, elevating as it does each clause by the irresistible
upward tendency of the whole sentence. The climax and resting place
cannot stop short of the bosom of God. (2) But again, we must also bear
in mind that the Epistle is everywhere to be read with the Gospel
before us, and the language of the Epistle to be connected with that of
the Gospel. The prooemium of the Epistle is the subjective version of
the objective historical point of view which we find at the close of
the preface to the Gospel. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us;" so St. John begins his sentence in the Gospel with a statement of
an historical fact. But he proceeds, "and we delightedly beheld His
glory;" that is a statement of the personal impression attested by his
own consciousness and that of other witnesses. But let us note
carefully that in the Epistle, which is in subjective relation to the
Gospel, this process is exactly reversed. The Apostle begins with the
personal impression; pauses to affirm the reality of the many proofs in
the realm of fact of that which produced this impression through the
senses upon the conceptions and emotions of those who were brought into
contact with the Saviour; and then returns to the subjective impression
from which he had originally started. (3) Much of the language in this
passage is inconsistent with our understanding by the Word the first
announcement of the Gospel preaching. One might of course speak of
hearing the commencement of the Gospel message, due surely not of
seeing and handling it. (4) It is a noteworthy fact that the Gospel and
the Apocalypse begin with the mention of the personal Word. This may
well lead us to expect that Logos should be used in the same sense in
the prooemium of the great Epistle by the same author.
We conclude then that when St. John here speaks of the Word of Life, he
refers to something higher again than the preaching of life, and that
he has in view both the manifestation of the life which has taken place
in our humanity, and Him who is personally at once the Word and the
Life. [133] The prooemium may be thus paraphrased. "That which in all
its collective influence was from the beginning as understood by Moses,
by Solomon, and Micah; [134] which we have first and above all heard in
divinely human utterances, but which we have also seen with these very
eyes; which we gazed upon with the full and entranced sight that
delights in the object contemplated; [135] and which these hands
handled reverentially at His bidding. [136] I speak all this concerning
the Word who is also the Life."
Tracts and sheets are often printed in our day with anthologies of
texts which are supposed to contain the very essence of the Gospel. But
the sweetest scents, it is said, are not distilled exclusively from
flowers, for the flower is but an exhalation. The seeds, the leaf, the
stem, the very bark should be macerated, because they contain the
odoriferous substance in minute sacs. So the purest Christian doctrine
is distilled, not only from a few exquisite flowers in a textual
anthology, but from the whole substance, so to speak, of the message.
Now it will be observed that at the beginning of the Epistle which
accompanied the fourth Gospel, our attention is directed not to a
sentiment, but to a fact and to a Person. In the collections of texts
to which reference has been made, we should probably never find two
brief passages which may not unjustly be considered to concentrate the
essence of the scheme of salvation more nearly than any others. "The
Word was made flesh." "Concerning the Word of Life (and that Life was
once manifested, and we have seen and consequently are witnesses and
announce to you from Him who sent us that Life, that eternal Life whose
it is to have been in eternal relation with the Father, and manifested
to us); That which we have seen and heard declare we from Him who sent
us unto you, to the end that you too may have fellowship with us."
It would be disrespectful to the theologian of the New Testament to
pass by the great dogmatic term never, so far as we are told, applied
by our Lord to Himself, but with which St. John begins each of his
three principal writings--The Word. [137]
Such mountains of erudition have been heaped over this term that it has
become difficult to discover the buried thought. The Apostle adopted a
word which was already in use in various quarters simply because if,
from the nature of the case necessarily inadequate, [138] it was yet
more suitable than any other. He also, as profound ancient thinkers
conceived, looked into the depths of the human mind, into the first
principles of that which is the chief distinction of man from the lower
creation--language. The human word, these thinkers taught, is twofold;
inner and outer--now as the manifestation to the mind itself of
unuttered thought, now as a part of language uttered to others. The
word as signifying unuttered thought, the mould in which it exists in
the mind, illustrates the eternal relation of the Father to the Son.
The word as signifying uttered thought illustrates the relation as
conveyed to man by the Incarnation. "No man hath seen God at any time;
the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father He
interpreted Him." For the theologian of the Church Jesus is thus the
Word; because He had His being from the Father in a way which presents
some analogy to the human word, which is sometimes the inner vesture,
sometimes the outward utterance of thought--sometimes the human thought
in that language without which man cannot think, sometimes the speech
whereby the speaker interprets it to others. Christ is the Word Whom
out of the fulness of His thought and being the Father has eternally
inspoken and outspoken into personal existence. [139]
One too well knows that such teaching as this runs the risk of
appearing uselessly subtle and technical, but its practical value will
appear upon reflection. Because it gives us possession of the point of
view from which St. John himself surveys, and from which he would have
the Church contemplate, the history of the life of our Lord. And indeed
for that life the theology of the Word, i.e., of the Incarnation, is
simply necessary.
For we must agree with M. Renan so far at least as this, that a great
life, even as the world counts greatness, is an organic whole with an
underlying vitalising idea; which must be construed as such, and cannot
be adequately rendered by a mere narration of facts. Without this
unifying principle the facts will be not only incoherent but
inconsistent. There must be a point of view from which we can embrace
the life as one. The great test here, as in art, is the formation of a
living, consistent, unmutilated whole. [140]
Thus a general point of view (if we are to use modern language easily
capable of being misunderstood we must say a theory) is wanted of the
Person, the work, the character of Christ. The synoptical Evangelists
had furnished the Church with the narrative of His earthly origin. St.
John in his Gospel and Epistle, under the guidance of the Spirit,
endowed it with the theory of His Person.
Other points of view have been adopted, from the heresies of the early
ages to the speculations of our own. All but St. John's have failed to
co-ordinate the elements of the problem. The earlier attempts essayed
to read the history upon the assumption that He was merely human or
merely divine. They tried in their weary round to unhumanise or undeify
the God-Man, to degrade the perfect Deity, to mutilate the perfect
Humanity--to present to the adoration of mankind a something neither
entirely human nor entirely divine, but an impossible mixture of the
two. The truth on these momentous subjects was fused under the fires of
controversy. The last centuries have produced theories less subtle and
metaphysical, but bolder and more blasphemous. Some have looked upon
Him as a pretender or an enthusiast. But the depth and sobriety of His
teaching upon ground where we are able to test it--the texture of
circumstantial word and work which will bear to be inspected under any
microscope or cross-examined by any prosecutor--have almost shamed such
blasphemy into respectful silence. Others of later date admit with
patronising admiration that the martyr of Calvary is a saint of
transcendent excellence. But if He who called Himself Son of God was
not much more than saint, He was something less. Indeed He would have
been something of three characters; saint, visionary, pretender--at
moments the Son of God in His elevated devotion, at other times
condescending to something of the practice of the charlatan, His
unparalleled presumption only excused by His unparalleled success.
Now the point of view taken by St. John is the only one which is
possible or consistent--the only one which reconciles the humiliation
and the glory recorded in the Gospels, which harmonises the otherwise
insoluble contradictions that beset His Person and His work. One after
another, to the question, "what think ye of Christ?" answers are
attempted, sometimes angry, sometimes sorrowful, always confused. The
frank respectful bewilderment of the better Socinianism, the gay
brilliance of French romance, the heavy insolence of German criticism,
have woven their revolting or perplexed christologies. The Church still
points with a confidence, which only deepens as the ages pass, to the
enunciation of the theory of the Saviour's Person by St. John--in his
Gospel, "The Word was made flesh"--in his Epistle, "concerning the Word
of Life."
__________________________________________________________________
[132] See the noble and enthusiastic preface to the washing of the
disciples' feet (John xiii. 1, 2, 3).
[133] The phrase probably means the Logos, the Personal "Word who is at
once both the Word and the Life." For the double genitive, the second
almost appositional to the first, conf. John ii. 21, xi. 13. This
interpretation would seem to be that of Chrysostom. "If then the Word
is the Life; and if this Christ who is at once the Word and the Life
became flesh; then the Life became flesh." (In Joan. Evang. v.)
[134] Gen. i. 1; Prov. viii. 23; Micah v. 2.
[135] Cf. John vi. 36, 40. The word is applied by the angel to the
disciples gazing on the Ascension, Acts i. 11. The Transfiguration may
be here referred to. Such an incident as that in John vii. 37 attests a
vivid delighted remembrance of the Saviour's very attitude.
[136] Luke xxiv. 39; John xx. 27.
[137] Gospel i. 1-14; 1 John i. 1; Apoc. i. 9.
[138] "He hath a name written which no one knoweth but He Himself,--and
His name is called The Word of God" (Apoc. xix. 12, 13). Gibbons'
adroit italics may here be noted. "The Logos, TAUGHT in the school of
Alexandria BEFORE Christ 100--REVEALED to the Apostle St. John, Anno
Domini, 97" (Decline and Fall, ch. xxi.). Just so very probably--though
whether St. John ever read a page of Philo or Plato we have no means of
knowing.
[139] The following table may be found useful:--
THE WORD IN ST. JOHN IS OPPOSED.
(A) To the Gnostic Word, created and temporal as (A) Uncreated and
Eternal. "In the beginning was the Word."
(B) To the Platonic Word, ideal and abstract as (B) Personal and
Divine. "The Word was God." "He"--"His."
(C) To the Judaistic and Philonic Word--the type and idea of God in
creation ... as (C) Creative and First Cause. "All things were made by
Him."
(D) To the Dualistic Word-- limitedly and partially instrumental in
creation. as (D) Unique and Universally Creative. "Without Him was not
anything made that hath been made."
(E) To the Doketic Word--impalpable and visionary as (E) Real and
Permanent. "The Word became flesh."
[140] Vie de Jesus, Int. 4.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE II.
ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL HISTORICAL NOT IDEOLOGICAL.
"That which we have heard."--1 John i. 1.
Our argument so far has been that St. John's Gospel is dominated by a
central idea and by a theory which harmonises the great and many-sided
life which it contains, and which is repeated again at the beginning of
the Epistle in a form analogous to that in which it had been cast in
the prooemium of the Gospel--allowing for the difference between a
history and a document of a more subjective character moulded upon that
history.
There is one objection to the accuracy, almost to the veracity, of a
life written from such a theory or point of view. It may disdain to be
shackled by the bondage of facts. It may become an essay in which
possibilities and speculations are mistaken for actual events, and
history is superseded by metaphysics. It may degenerate into a romance
or prose-poem; if the subject is religious, into a mystic effusion. In
the case of the fourth Gospel the cycles in which the narrative moves,
the unveiling as of the progress of a drama, are thought by some to
confirm the suspicion awakened by the point of view given in its
prooemium, and in the opening of the Epistle. The Gospel, it is said,
is ideological. To us it appears that those who have entered most
deeply into the spirit of St. John will most deeply feel the
significance of the two words which we place at the head of this
discourse--"which we have heard," "which we have seen with our very
eyes," (which we contemplated with entranced gaze) "which our hands
have handled."
More truly than any other, St. John could say of this letter in the
words of an American poet:
"This is not a book--It is I!"
In one so true, so simple, so profound, so oracular, there is a special
reason for this prolonged appeal to the senses, and for the place which
is assigned to each. In the fact that hearing stands first, there is a
reference to one characteristic of that Gospel to which the Epistle
throughout refers. Beyond the synoptical Evangelists, St. John records
the words of Jesus. The position which hearing holds in the sentence,
above and prior to sight and handling, indicates the reverential
estimation in which the Apostle held his Master's teaching. [141] The
expression places us on solid historical ground, because it is a moral
demonstration that one like St. John would not have dared to invent
whole discourses and place them in the lips of Jesus. Thus in the "we
have heard" there is a guarantee of the sincerity of the report of the
discourses, which forms so large a proportion of the narrative that it
practically guarantees the whole Gospel.
On this accusation of ideology against St. John's Gospel, let us make a
further remark founded upon the Epistle.
It is said that the Gospel systematically subordinates chronological
order and historical sequence of facts to the necessity imposed by the
theory of the Word which stands in the forefront of the Epistle and
Gospel.
But mystic ideology, indifference to historical veracity as compared
with adherence to a conception or theory, is absolutely inconsistent
with that strong, simple, severe appeal to the validity of the
historical principle of belief upon sufficient evidence which pervades
St. John's writings. His Gospel is a tissue woven of many lines of
evidence. "Witness" stands in almost every page of that Gospel, and
indeed is found there nearly as often as in the whole of the rest of
the New Testament. The word occurs ten times in five short verses of
the Epistle. [142] There is no possibility of mistaking this prolixity
of reiteration in a writer so simple and so sincere as our Apostle. The
theologian is an historian. He has no intention of sacrificing history
to dogma, and no necessity for doing so. His theory, and that alone,
harmonises his facts. His facts have passed in the domain of human
history, and have had that evidence of witness which proves that they
did so.
A few of the stories of the earliest ages of Christianity have ever
been repeated, and rightly so, as affording the most beautiful
illustrations of St. John's character, the most simple and truthful
idea of the impression left by his character and his work. His tender
love for souls, his deathless desire to promote mutual love among his
people, are enshrined in two anecdotes which the Church has never
forgotten. It has scarcely been noticed that a tradition of not much
later date (at least as old as Tertullian, born probably about A.D.
150) credits St. John with a stern reverence for the accuracy of
historical truth, and tells us what, in the estimation of those who
were near him in time, the Apostle thought of the lawfulness of
ideological religious romance. It was said that a presbyter of Asia
Minor confessed that he was the author of certain apocryphal Acts of
Paul and Thecla--probably the same strange but unquestionably very
ancient document with the same title which is still preserved. The
man's motive does not seem to have been selfish. His work was
apparently the composition of an ardent and romantic nature
passionately attracted by a saint so wonderful as St. Paul. [143] The
tradition went on to assert that St. John without hesitation degraded
this clerical romance-writer from his ministry. But the offence of the
Asiatic presbyter would have been light indeed compared with that of
the mendacious Evangelist, who could have deliberately fabricated
discourses and narrated miracles which he dared to attribute to the
Incarnate Son of God. The guilt of publishing to the Church apocryphal
Acts of Paul and Thecla would have paled before the crimson sin of
forging a Gospel.
These considerations upon St. John's prolonged and circumstantial claim
to personal acquaintance with the Word made flesh, confirmed by every
avenue of communication between man and man--and first in order by the
hearing of that sweet yet awful teaching--point to the fourth Gospel
again and again. And the simple assertion--"that which we have
heard"--accounts for one characteristic of the fourth Gospel which
would otherwise be a perplexing enigma--its dramatic vividness and
consistency.
This dramatic truth of St. John's narrative, manifested in various
developments, deserves careful consideration. There are three notes in
the fourth Gospel which indicate either a consummate dramatic instinct
or a most faithful record. (1) The delineation of individual
characters. The Evangelist tells us with no unmeaning distinction, that
Jesus "knew all men, and knew what is in man!" [144] For some persons
take an apparently profound view of human nature in the abstract. They
pass for being sages so long as they confine themselves to sounding
generalizations, but they are convicted on the field of life and
experience. They claim to know what is in man; but they know it
vaguely, as one might be in possession of the outlines of a map, yet
totally ignorant of most places within its limits. Others, who mostly
affect to be keen men of the world, refrain from generalizations; but
they have an insight, which at times is startling, into the characters
of the individual men who cross their path. There is a sense in which
they superficially seem to know all men, but their knowledge after all
is capricious and limited. One class affects to know men, but does not
even affect to know man; the other class knows something about man, but
is lost in the infinite variety of the world of real men. Our Lord knew
both--both the abstract ultimate principles of human nature and the
subtle distinctions which mark off every human character from every
other. Of this peculiar knowledge he who was brought into the most
intimate communion with the Great Teacher was made in some degree a
partaker in the course of His earthly ministry. With how few touches
yet how clearly are delineated the Baptist, Nathanael, the Samaritan
woman, the blind man, Philip, Thomas, Martha and Mary, Pilate! (2) More
particularly the appropriateness and consistency of the language used
by the various persons introduced in the narrative is, in the case of a
writer like St. John, a multiplied proof of historical veracity. [145]
For instance, of St. Thomas only one single sentence, containing seven
words, is preserved, [146] outside the memorable narrative in the
twentieth chapter; yet how unmistakably does that brief sentence
indicate the same character--tender, impetuous, loving, yet ever
inclined to take the darker view of things because from the very excess
of its affection it cannot believe in that which it most desires, and
demands accumulated and convincing proof of its own happiness. (3)
Further, the language of our Lord which St. John preserves is both
morally and intellectually a marvellous witness to the proof of his
assertion here in the outset of his Epistle.
This may be exemplified by an illustration from modern literature.
Victor Hugo, in his Légende des Siècles, has in one passage only placed
in our Lord's lips a few words which are not found in the Evangelist.
[147] Every one will at once feel that these words ring hollow, that
there is in them something exaggerated and factitious--and that
although the dramatist had the advantage of having a type of style
already constructed for him. People talk as if the representation in
detail of a perfect character were a comparatively easy performance.
Yet every such representation shows some flaw when closely inspected.
For instance, a character in which Shakespeare so evidently delighted
as Buckingham, whose end is so noble and martyr-like, is thus
described, when on his trial, by a sympathising witness:
"'How did he bear himself?'
'When he was bought again to the bar, to hear,
His knell rung out, his judgment, he was struck
With such an agony, he sweat extremely,
And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty;
But he fell to himself again, and sweetly
In all the rest show'd a most noble patience.'" [148]
Our argument comes to this point. Here is one man of all but the
highest rank in dramatic genius, who utterly fails to invent even one
sentence which could possibly be taken for an utterance of our Lord.
Here is another, the most transcendent in the same order whom the human
race has ever known, who tacitly confesses the impossibility of
representing a character which shall be "one entire and perfect
chrysolite," without speck or flaw. Take yet another instance. Sir
Walter Scott appeals for "the fair licence due to the author of a
fictitious composition;" and admits that he "cannot pretend to the
observation of complete accuracy even in outward costume, much less in
the more important points of language and manners." [149] But St. John
was evidently a man of no such pretensions as these kings of the human
imagination--no Scott or Victor Hugo, much less a Shakespeare. How
then--except on the assumption of his being a faithful reporter, of his
recording words actually spoken, and witnessing incidents which he had
seen with his very eyes and contemplated with loving and admiring
reverence--can we account for his having given us long successions of
sentences, continuous discourses in which we trace a certain unity and
adaptation; [150] and a character which stands alone among all recorded
in history or conceived in fiction, by presenting to us an excellence
faultless in every detail? We assert that the one answer to this
question is boldly given us by St. John in the forefront of his
Epistle--"That which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes--concerning the Word who is the Life--declare we unto you."
St. John's mode of writing history may profitably be contrasted with
that of one who in his own line was a great master, as it has been ably
criticised by a distinguished statesman. Voltaire's historical
masterpiece is a portion of the life of Maria Theresa, which is
unquestionably written from a partly ideological point of view. For,
those who have patience to go back to the "sources," and to compare
Voltaire's narrative with them, will see the process by which a
literary master has produced his effect. The writer works as if he were
composing a classical tragedy restricted to the unities of time and
place. The three days of the coronation and of the successive votes are
brought into one effect, of which we are made to feel that it is due to
a magic inspiration of Maria Theresa. Yet, as the great historical
critic to whom we refer proceeds to demonstrate, a different charm,
very much more real because it comes from truth, may be found in
literal historical accuracy without this academic rouge. Writers more
conscientious than Voltaire would not have assumed that Maria Theresa
was degraded by a husband who was inferior to her. They would not have
substituted some pretty and pretentious phrases for the genuine emotion
not quite veiled under the official Latin of the Queen. "However high a
thing art may be, reality, truth, which is the work of God, is higher!"
[151] It is this conviction, this entire intense adhesion to truth,
this childlike ingenuousness which has made St. John as an historian
attain the higher region which is usually reached by genius
alone--which has given us narratives and passages whose ideal beauty or
awe is so transcendent or solemn, whose pictorial grandeur or pathos is
so inexhaustible, whose philosophical depth is so unfathomable. [152]
He stands with spell-bound delight before his work without the
disappointment which ever attends upon men of genius; because that work
is not drawn from himself, because he can say three words--which we
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have gazed upon.
NOTES.
Ch. i. 2, 4.
Ver. 2. Us, we.] "The nominative plural first person is not always of
majesty but often of modesty, when we share our privilege and dignity
with others" (Grotius). The context must decide what shade of meaning
is to be read into the text, e.g., here it is the we of modesty, as
also (very tenderly and beautifully) in ii. 1, 2, v. 5. It rises into
majesty with the majestic, "we announce."
Ver. 4. "These things."] Not even the fellowship with the Church and
with the Father and with the Son is so much in the Apostle's intention
here as the record in the Gospel.
We write unto you.] In days when men's minds were still freshly full of
the privilege of free access to the Scriptures, these words suggested
(and they naturally enough do so still) the use of the written word,
and the guilt of the Church or of individuals in neglecting it. This
has been well expressed by an old divine. "That which is able to give
us full joy must not be deficient in anything which conduceth to our
happiness; but the holy Scriptures give fulness of joy, and therefore
the way to happiness is perfectly laid down in them. The major of this
syllogism is so clear, that it needs no probation; for who can or will
deny, that full joy is only to be had in a state of bliss? The minor is
plain from this scripture, and may thus be drawn forth. That which the
Apostles aimed at in, may doubtless be attained to by, their writings;
for they being inspired of God, it is no other than the end that God
purposed in inspiring which they had in writing; and either God Himself
is wanting in the means which He hath designed for this end, or these
writings contain in them what will yield fulness of joy, and to that
end bring us to a state of blessedness.
"How odious is the profaneness of those Christians who neglect the holy
Scriptures, and give themselves to reading other books! How many
precious hours do many spend, and that not only on work days, but holy
days, in foolish romances, fabulous histories, lascivious poems! And
why this, but that they may be cheered and delighted, when as full joy
is only to be had in these holy books. Alas, the joy you find in those
writings is perhaps pernicious, such as tickleth your lust, and
promoteth contemplative wickedness. At the best it is but vain, such as
only pleaseth the fancy and affecteth the wit; whereas these holy
writings (to use David's expression, Psalm xix. 8), are 'right,
rejoicing the heart.' Again, are there not many who more set by
Plutarch's morals, Seneca's epistles, and suchlike books, than they do
by the holy Scriptures? It is true, there are excellent truths in those
moral writings of the heathen, but yet they are far short of these
sacred books. Those may comfort against outward trouble, but not
against inward fears; they may rejoice the mind, but cannot quiet the
conscience; they may kindle some flashy sparkles of joy, but they
cannot warm the soul with a lasting fire of solid consolation. And
truly, if ever God give you a spiritual ear to judge of things aright,
you will then acknowledge there are no bells like to those of Aaron, no
harp like to that of David, no trumpet like to that of Isaiah, no pipes
like to those of the Apostles." (First Epistle of St. John, unfolded
and applied by Nathaniel Hardy, D.D., Dean of Rochester, about 1660.)
__________________________________________________________________
[141] The appeal to the senses of seeing and hearing is a trait common
to all the group of St. John's writings (John i. 14, xix. 35; 1 John i.
1, 2, iv. 14; Apoc. i. 2). The true reading (kago Ioannes ho akouon kai
blepon tauta. Apoc. xxi. 8, where hearing stands before seeing) is
indicative of John's style.
[142] 1 John v. 6-12.
[143] That the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" are of high antiquity there
can be no rational doubt. Tertullian writes: "But if those who read St.
Paul's writings rashly use the example of Thecla, to give licence to
women to teach and baptize publicly, let them know that a presbyter of
Asia Minor, who put together that piece, crowning it with the authority
of a Pauline title, convicted by his own confession of doing this from
love of St. Paul, was deprived of his orders." (Tertullian, De
Baptismo, xvii.) On which St. Jerome remarks--"We therefore relegate to
the class of apocryphal writings, the periodos of Paul and Thecla, and
the whole fable of the baptized lion. For how could it be that the sole
real companion of the Apostle" (Luke) "while so well acquainted with
the rest of the history, should have known nothing of this? And
further, Tertullian, who touched so nearly upon those times, records
that a certain presbyter in Asia Minor, convicted before John of being
the author of that book, and confessing that as a spoudastes of the
Apostle Paul he had done this from loving devotion to that great
memory, was deposed from his ministry." (St. Hieron., de Script.
Eccles., VII.) See the mass of authority for the antiquity of this
document, which gives a considerable degree of probability to the
statement about St. John, in Acta Apost. Apoc., Edit.
Tischendorf.--Proleg. xxi., xxvi.
[144] 1 John iii. 24, 25.
[145] Those who are perplexed by the identity in style and turn of
language between the Epistle and the discourse of our Lord in St.
John's Gospel may be referred to the writer's remarks in The Speakers
Commentary (N. T. iv. 286-89). It should be added that the Epp. to the
Seven Churches (Apoc. ii., iii.)--especially to Sardis--interweave
sayings of Jesus recorded by the Synoptical evangelists, e.g., "as a
thief," Apoc. iii. 3, cf. Mark xiii. 37; "book of life," Apoc. iii. 5,
cf. Luke x. 20; "confessing a name," Apoc. iii. 5, cf. Matt. x. 32; "He
that hath an ear," Apoc. iii. 6, 13, 22, and ii. 7, 11, 17, 29. This
phrase, found in each of the seven Epp., occurs nowhere in the fourth
Gospel, but constantly in the Synoptics. Cf. Matt. x. 27, xi. 15, xiii.
19, 43; Mark iv. 9, 23, vii. 16; Luke viii. 8, xiv. 35; cf. also
"giving power over the nations," Apoc. ii. 26--with the conception in
Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 29, 30. The word repentance is nowhere in the
fourth Gospel, nor given as part of our Lord's teaching; but we find it
Apoc. ii. 5, 16, iii. 3, 1 9. If the author of the fourth Gospel was
also the author of the Apocalypse, his choice of the style which he
attributes to the Saviour was at least decided by no lack of knowledge
of the Synoptical type of expression, and by no incapacity to use it
with freedom and power.
[146] John xi. 16.
[147]
"Qui me suit, aux anges est pareil.
Quand un homme a marché tout le jour au soleil
Dans un chemin sans puits et sans hôtellerie,
S'il ne croit pas quand vient le soir il pleure, il crie,
Il est las; sur la terre il tombe haletant.
S'il croit en moi, qu'il prie, il peut au même instant.
Continuer sa route avec des forces triples."
(Le Christ et le Tombeau.) Tom. i. 44.
[148] King Henry VIII., Act 2, Sc. 1. Contrast again our Lord before
the council with St. Paul before that tribunal. In the case of one of
the chief of saints there is the touch of human infirmity, the
"something spoken in choler, ill and hasty," the angry and contemptuous
"whited wall"--the confession of hasty inconsiderateness (ouk
hedein--hoti estin archiereus) which led to a violation of a precept of
the law (Exod. xxii. 28).
[149] Preface to Ivanhoe.
[150] How the great sayings were accurately collected has not been the
question before us in this discourse. But it presents little
difficulty. It is not absurd to suppose (if we are required to
postulate no divine assistance) that notes may have been taken in some
form by certain members of the company of disciples. The profoundly
thoughtful remark of Irenæus upon his own unfailing recollection of
early lessons from Polycarp, would apply with indefinitely greater
force to such a pupil as John, of such a teacher as Jesus. "I can
thoroughly recollect things so far back better than those which have
lately occurred; for lessons which have grown with us since boyhood are
compacted into a unity with the very soul itself." (te psuche henountai
aute) Euseb., v. 29. But above all, whatever subordinate agency may
have been employed in the preservation of those precious words, every
Christian reverently acknowledges the fulfilment of the Saviour's
promise--"The Comforter, the Holy Ghost, He shall teach you all things,
and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto
you" (John xiv. 26).
[151] Duc de Broglie. Revue des deux Mondes. 15 Jan. 1882. Coxe, House
of Austria, vol. iii., chap. xcix., p. 415, sqq.
[152] John xiii. 30, xi. 35, xix. 5, xix. 29-35.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION II.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Kai aute estin he angelia hen akekoamen ap' autou, kai anangellomen
humin, hoti ho Theos phos estin, kai skotia en auto ouk estin oudemia.
ean eipomen hoti koinonian echomen met' autou, kai en to skotei
peripatomen, pseudometha, kai ou poioumen ten aletheian; ean de en to
photi peripatomen, hos autos estin en to photi, koinonian echomen met'
allelon, kai to aima Iesou tou uiou autou katharizei hemas apo pases
hamartias. Ean eipomen hoti hamartian ouk echomen, heautous planomen,
kai he aletheia en hemin ouk estin. ean homologomen tas hamartias
hemon, pistos esti kai dikaios, hina haphe hemin tas hamartias, kai
katharise hemas apo pases adikias. ean eipomen hoti ouch hemartekamen,
pseusten poioumen auton, kai ho logos autou ouk estin en hemin.
Teknia mou, tauta grapho humin, hina me hamartete; kai ean tis hamarte,
parakleton echomen pros ton patera, Iesoun Christon dikaion; kai autos
ilasmos esti peri ton hamartion hemon; ou peri ton hemeteron de monon,
alla kai peri holou tou kosmou.
Et hæc est adnuntiatio quam audivimus ab eo, et adnuntiamus vobis,
quoniam Deus lux est, et tenebræ in eo non sunt ullæ. Si dixerimus
quoniam societatem habemus cum eo et in tenebris ambulamus, mentimur,
et non facimus veritatem: si autem in luce ambulamus sicut et ipse est
in luce, societatem habemus ad invicem, et sanguis Iesu Christi, Filii
eius, mundat nos omni peccato. Si dixerimus quoniam peccatum non
habemus, ipsi nos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est. Si
confiteamur peccata nostra, fidelis et justus est, ut remittat nobis
peccata nostra, et emundet nos ab omni iniquitate. Si dixerimus quoniam
non peccavimus, mendacem faciemus eum, et verbum eius in nobis non est.
Filioli mei, hæc scribo vobis, ut non peccetis: sed et si quis
peccaverit advocatum habemus apud Patrem, Iesum Christum iustum et ipse
est propitiatio pro peccatis nostris, non pro nostris autem tantum sed
etiam pro totius mundi.
This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto
you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say
that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do
not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we
have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar,
and His word is not in us. My little children, these things write I
unto you, that ye sin not. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for
our sins: and not for our's only, but also for the sins of the whole
world.
And this is the message which we have heard from Him, and announce unto
you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say
that we have fellowship with him, and walk in the darkness, we lie, and
do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son
cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins He is
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a
liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, these things write
I unto you, that ye may not sin. And if any man sin, we have an
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the
propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the
whole world.
And this is the message which we have heard from Him and are announcing
unto you that God is light, and darkness in Him there is none. If we
say that we have fellowship with Him and are walking in the darkness,
we lie and are not doing the truth; but if we walk in the light as He
is in the light we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of
Jesus His Son is purifying us from all sin. If we say that we have not
sin, we mislead ourselves and the truth in us is not. If we confess our
sins He is faithful and righteous that He may forgive our sins and
purify us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned a
liar we are making Him, and His word is not in us. My children these
things write I unto you that ye may not sin. And yet if any may have
sinned, an Advocate have we with the Father Jesus Christ who is
righteous: and He is propitiation for our sins; yea, and not for ours
only but also for the whole world.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE III.
EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT.
"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.
And if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."--1 John ii. 1,
2.
Of the Incarnation of the Word, of the whole previous strain of solemn
oracular annunciation, there are two great objects. Rightly understood
it at once stimulates and soothes; it supplies inducements to holiness,
and yet quiets the accusing heart. (1) It urges to a pervading holiness
in each recurring circumstance of life. [153] "That ye may not sin" is
the bold universal language of the morality of God. Men only understand
moral teaching when it comes with a series of monographs on the
virtues, sobriety, chastity, and the rest. Christianity does not
overlook these, but it comes first with all-inclusive principles. The
morality of man is like the sculptor working line by line and part by
part, partially and successively. The morality of God is like nature,
and works in every part of the flower and tree with a sort of
ubiquitous presence. "These things write we unto you." No dead
letter--a living spirit infuses the lines; there is a deathless
principle behind the words which will vitalize and permeate all
isolated relations and developments of conduct. "These things write we
unto you that ye may not sin."
(2) But further, this announcement also soothes. There may be isolated
acts of sin against the whole tenor of the higher and nobler life.
There may be, God forbid!--but it may be--some glaring act of
inconsistency. In this case the Apostle uses a form of expression which
includes himself, "we have," and yet points to Christ, not to himself,
"we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ"--and that in view
of His being One who is perfectly and simply righteous; "and He is the
propitiation for our sins."
Then, as if suddenly fired by a great thought, St. John's view broadens
over the whole world beyond the limits of the comparatively little
group of believers whom his words at that time could reach. The
Incarnation and Atonement have been before his soul. The Catholic
Church is the correlative of the first, humanity of the second. The
Paraclete whom he beheld is ever in relation with, ever turned towards
the Father. [154] His propitiation is, and He is it. It was not simply
a fact in history which works on with unexhaustible force. As the
Advocate is ever turned towards the Father, so the propitiation lives
on with unexhausted life. His intercession is not verbal, temporary,
interrupted. The Church, in her best days, never prayed--"Jesus, pray
for me!" It is interpretative, continuous, unbroken. In time it is
eternally valid, eternally present. In space it extends as far as human
need, and therefore takes in every place. "Not for our sins only," but
for men universally, "for the whole world." [155]
It is implied then in this passage, that Christ was intended as a
propitiation for the whole world; and that He is fitted for satisfying
all human wants.
(1) Christ was intended for the whole world. Let us see the Divine
intention in one incident of the crucifixion. In that are mingling
lines of glory and of humiliation. The King of humanity appears with a
scarlet camp-mantle flung contemptuously over His shoulders; but to the
eye of faith it is the purple of empire. He is crowned with the
acanthus wreath; but the wreath of mockery is the royalty of our race.
He is crucified between two thieves; but His cross is a
Judgment-Throne, and at His right hand and His left are the two
separated worlds of belief and unbelief. All the Evangelists tell us
that a superscription, a title of accusation, was written over His
cross; two of them add that it was written over Him "in letters of
Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew" (or in Hebrew, Greek, Latin). In
Hebrew--the sacred tongue of patriarchs and seers, of the nation all
whose members were in idea and destination those of whom God said, "My
prophets." In Greek--the "musical and golden tongue which gave a soul
to the objects of sense and a body to the abstractions of philosophy;"
the language of a people whose mission it was to give a principle of
fermentation to all races of mankind, susceptible of those subtle and
largely indefinable influences which are called collectively Progress.
In Latin--the dialect of a people originally the strongest of all the
sons of men. The three languages represent the three races and their
ideas--revelation, art, literature; progress, war, and jurisprudence.
Beneath the title is the thorn-crowned head of the ideal King of
humanity.
Wherever these three tendencies of the human race exist, wherever
annunciation can be made in human language, wherever there is a heart
to sin, a tongue to speak, an eye to read, the cross has a message. The
superscription, "written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin," is the
historical symbol translated into its dogmatic form by St. John--"He is
the propitiation [156] for our sins, and not for ours only, but also
for the whole world."
__________________________________________________________________
[153] Observe in the Greek the me hamartete, which refers to single
acts, not to a continuous state--"that ye may not sin."
[154] 1 John ii. 2. As a translation, "towards" seems too pedantic; yet
pros is ad-versus rather than apud, and with the accusative signifies
either the direction of motion, or the relation between two objects.
(Donaldson, Greek Grammar, 524). We may fittingly call the preposition
here pros pictorial.
[155] The various meanings of kosmos are fully traced below on 1 John
ii. 17. There is one point in which the notions of kosmos and aion
intersect. But they may be thus distinguished. The first signifies the
world projected in space, the second in time. The supposition that the
form of expression at the close of our verse is elliptical, and to be
filled up by the repetition of "for the sins of the whole world" "is
not justified by usage, and weakens the force of the passage."
(Epistles of St. John, Westcott, p. 44.)
[156] As to doctrine. There are three "grand circles" or "families of
images" whereby Scripture approaches from different quarters, or
surveys from different sides, the benefits of our Lord's meritorious
death. These are represented by, are summed up in, three
words--apolutrosis, katallage, ilasmos. The last is found in the text
and in iv. 10; nowhere else precisely in that form in the New
Testament. "Ilasmos (expiation or propitiation) and apolutrosis
(redemption) is fundamentally one single benefit, i.e., the restitution
of the lost sinner. Apolutrosis is in respect of enemies; katallage in
respect of God. And here again the words hilasm. and katall. differ.
Propitiation takes away offences as against God. Reconciliation has two
sides. It takes away (a) God's indignation against us, 2 Cor. v. 18,
19; (b) our alienation from God, 2 Cor. v. 20." (Bengel on Rom. iii.
24. Whoever would rightly understand all that we can know on these
great words must study New Testament Synonyms, Archbp. Trench, pp.
276-82.)
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE IV.
MISSIONARY APPLICATION OF THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT.
"For the whole world."--1 John ii. 2.
Let us now consider the universal and ineradicable wants of man.
Such a consideration is substantially unaffected by speculation as to
the theory of man's origin. Whether the first men are to be looked for
by the banks of some icy river feebly shaping their arrowheads of
flint, or in godlike and glorious progenitors beside the streams of
Eden; whether our ancestors were the result of an inconceivably ancient
evolution, or called into existence by a creative act, or sprung from
some lower creature elevated in the fulness of time by a majestic
inspiration,--at least, as a matter of fact, man has other and deeper
wants than those of the back and stomach. Man as he is has five
spiritual instincts. How they came to be there, let it be repeated, is
not the question. It is the fact of their existence, not the mode of
their genesis, with which we are now concerned.
(1) There is almost, if not quite, without exception the instinct which
may be generally described as the instinct of the Divine. In the
wonderful address where St. Paul so fully recognises the influence of
geographical circumstance and of climate, he speaks of God "having made
out of one blood every nation of men to seek after their Lord, if haply
at least" (as might be expected) "they would feel for Him" [157] --like
men in darkness groping towards the light. (2) There is the instinct of
prayer, the "testimony of the soul naturally Christian." The little
child at our knees meets us half way in the first touching lessons in
the science of prayer. In danger, when the vessel seems to be sinking
in a storm, it is ever as it was in the days of Jonah, when "the
mariners cried every man unto his God." [158] (3) There is the instinct
of immortality, the desire that our conscious existence should continue
beyond death.
"Who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
These thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather swallow'd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night?"
(4) There is the instinct of morality, call it conscience or what we
will. The lowest, most sordid, most materialised languages are never
quite without witness to this nobler instinct. Though such languages
have lien among the pots, yet their wings are as the wings of a dove
that is covered with silver wings and her feathers like gold. The most
impoverished vocabularies have words of moral judgment, "good" or
"bad;" of praise or blame, "truth and lie;" above all, those august
words which recognise a law paramount to all other laws, "I must," "I
ought." (5) There is the instinct of sacrifice, which, if not
absolutely universal, is at least all but so--the sense of impurity and
unworthiness, which says by the very fact of bringing a victim. "I am
not worthy to come alone; may my guilt be transferred to the
representative which I immolate."
(1) Thus then man seeks after God. Philosophy unaided does not succeed
in finding Him. The theistic systems marshal their syllogisms; they
prove, but do not convince. The pantheistic systems glitter before
man's eye; but when he grasps them in his feverish hand, and brushes
off the mystic gold dust from the moth's wings, a death's-head mocks
him. St. John has found the essence of the whole question, stripped
from it all its plausible disguises, and characterises Mahommedan and
Judaistic Deism in a few words. Nay, the philosophical deism of
Christian countries comes within the scope of his terrible proposition.
"Deo erexit Voltairius," was the philosopher's inscription over the
porch of a church; but Voltaire had not in any true sense a God to whom
he could dedicate it. For St. John tells us--"whosoever denieth the
Son, the same hath not the Father." [159] Other words there are in his
Second Epistle whose full import seems to have been generally
overlooked, but which are of solemn significance to those who go out
from the camp of Christianity with the idea of finding a more refined
morality and a more ethereal spiritualism. "Whosoever goeth forward and
abideth not in the doctrine of Christ"; whosoever writes progress on
his standard, and goes forward beyond the lines of Christ, loses
natural as well as supernatural religion--"he hath not God." [160] (2)
Man wants to pray. Poor disinherited child, what master of requests
shall he find? Who shall interpret his broken language to God, God's
infinite language to him? (3) Man yearns for the assurance of immortal
life. This can best be given by one specimen of manhood risen from the
grave, one traveller come back from the undiscovered bourne with the
breath of eternity on His cheek and its light in His eye; one like
Jonah, Himself the living sign and proof that He has been down in the
great deeps. (4) Man needs a morality to instruct and elevate
conscience. Such a morality must possess these characteristics. It must
be authoritative, resting upon an absolute will; its teacher must say,
not "I think," or "I conclude," but--"verily, verily I say unto you."
It must be unmixed with baser and more questionable elements. It must
be pervasive, laying the strong grasp of its purity on the whole domain
of thought and feeling as well as of action. It must be exemplified. It
must present to us a series of pictures, of object-lessons in which we
may see it illustrated. Finally, this morality must be spiritual. It
must come to man, not like the Jewish Talmud with its seventy thousand
precepts which few indeed can ever learn, but with a compendious and
condensed, yet all-embracing brevity--with words that are spirit and
life. (5) As man knows duty more thoroughly, the instinct of sacrifice
will speak with an ever-increasing intensity. "My heart is overwhelmed
by the infinite purity of this law. Lead me to the rock that is higher
than I; let me find God and be reconciled to Him." When the old Latin
spoke of propitiation he thought of something which brought near
(prope); his inner thought was--"let God come near to me, that I may be
near to God." These five ultimate spiritual wants, these five
ineradicable spiritual instincts, He must meet, of whom a master of
spiritual truth like St. John can say with his plenitude of
insight--"He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only,
but also for the whole world."
We shall better understand the fulness of St. John's thought if we
proceed to consider that this fitness in Christ for meeting the
spiritual wants of humanity is exclusive.
Three great religions of the world are more or less Missionary.
Hinduism, which embraces at least a hundred and ninety millions of
souls, is certainly not in any sense missionary. For Hinduism
transplanted from its ancient shrines and local superstitions dies like
a flower without roots. But Judaism at times has strung itself to a
kind of exertion almost inconsistent with its leading idea. The very
word "proselyte" attests the unnatural fervour to which it had worked
itself up in our Lord's time. The Pharisee was a missionary sent out by
pride and consecrated by self-will. "Ye compass sea and land to make
one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him tenfold more the child
of hell than yourselves." [161] Bouddhism has had enormous missionary
success from one point of view. Not long ago it was said that it
outnumbered Christendom. But it is to be observed that it finds
adherents among people of only one type of thought and character. [162]
Outside these races it is and must ever be, non-existent. We may except
the fanciful perversion of a few idle people in London, Calcutta, or
Ceylon, captivated for a season or two by "the light of Asia." We may
except also a very few more remarkable cases where the esoteric
principle of Bouddhism commends itself to certain profound thinkers
stricken with the dreary disease of modern sentiment. Mohammedanism has
also, in a limited degree, proved itself a missionary religion, not
only by the sword. In British India it counts millions of adherents,
and it is still making some progress in India. In other ages whole
Christian populations (but belonging to heretical and debased forms of
Christianity) have gone over to Mohammedanism. Let us be just to it.
[163] It once elevated the pagan Arabs. Even now it elevates the Negro
above his fetisch. But it must ever remain a religion for stationary
races, with its sterile God and its poor literality, the dead book
pressing upon it with a weight of lead. Its merits are these--it
inculcates a lofty if sterile Theism; it fulfils the pledge conveyed in
the word Moslem, by inspiring a calm if frigid resignation to destiny;
it teaches the duty of prayer with a strange impressiveness. But whole
realms of thought and feeling are crushed out by its bloody and lustful
grasp. It is without purity, without tenderness, and without humility.
Thus then we come back again with a truer insight to the exclusive
fitness of Christ to meet the wants of mankind.
Others beside the Incarnate Lord have obtained from a portion of their
fellow-men some measure of passionate enthusiasm. Each people has a
hero, call him demigod, or what we will. But such men are idolised by
one race alone, and are fashioned after its likeness. The very
qualities which procure them an apotheosis are precisely those which
prove how narrow the type is which they represent; how far they are
from speaking to all humanity. A national type is a narrow and
exclusive type.
No European, unless effeminated and enfeebled, could really love an
Asiatic Messiah. But Christ is loved everywhere. No race or kindred is
exempt from the sweet contagion produced by the universal appeal of the
universal Saviour. From all languages spoken by the lips of man, hymns
of adoration are offered to Him. We read in England the Confessions of
St. Augustine. Those words still quiver with the emotions of penitence
and praise; still breathe the breath of life. Those ardent affections,
those yearnings of personal love to Christ, which filled the heart of
Augustine fifteen centuries ago, under the blue sky of Africa, touch us
even now under this grey heaven in the fierce hurry of our modern life.
But they have in them equally the possibility of touching the Shanar of
Tinnevelly, the Negro--even the Bushman, or the native of Terra del
Fuego. By a homage of such diversity and such extent we recognise a
universal Saviour for the universal wants of universal man, the fitting
propitiation for the whole world.
Towards the close of this Epistle St. John oracularly utters three
great canons of universal Christian consciousness--"we know," "we
know," "we know." Of these three canons the second is--"we know that we
are from God, and the world lieth wholly in the wicked one." "A
characteristic Johannic exaggeration"! some critic has exclaimed; yet
surely even in Christian lands where men lie outside the influences of
the Divine society, we have only to read the Police-reports to justify
the Apostle. In volumes of travels, again, in the pages of Darwin and
Baker, from missionary records in places where the earth is full of
darkness and cruel habitations, we are told of deeds of lust and blood
which almost make us blush to bear the same form with creatures so
degraded. Yet the very same missionary records bear witness that in
every race which the Gospel proclamation has reached, however low it
may be placed in the scale of the ethnologist; deep under the ruins of
the fall are the spiritual instincts, the affections which have for
their object the infinite God, and for their career the illimitable
ages. The shadow of sin is broad indeed. But in the evening light of
God's love the shadow of the cross is projected further still into the
infinite beyond. Missionary success is therefore sure, if it be slow.
The reason is given by St. John. "He is the propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only, but for the whole world."
NOTES.
Ch. i. 5 to ii. 2.
Ver. 5. The Word, the Life, the Light, are connected in the first
chapter as in John i. 3, 4, 5. Upon earth, behind all life is light; in
the spiritual world, behind all light is life.
Darkness.] The schoolmen well said that there is a fourfold
darkness--of nature, of ignorance, of misery, of sin. The symbol of
light applied to God must designate perfect goodness and beauty,
combined with blissful consciousness of it, and transparent luminous
clearness of wisdom.
Ver. 7. The blood of Jesus His Son] Sc. poured forth. This word (the
Blood) denotes more vividly and effectively than any other could do
three great realities of the Christian belief--the reality of the
Manhood of Jesus, the reality of His sufferings, the reality of His
sacrifice. It is dogma; but dogma made pictorial, pathetic, almost
passionate. It may be noted that much current thought and feeling
around us is just at the opposite extreme. It is a semi-doketism which
is manifested in two different forms. (1) Whilst it need not be denied
that there are hymns which are pervaded by an ensanguined materialism,
and which are calculated to wound reverence, as well as taste; it is
clear that much criticism on hymns and sermons, where the "Blood of
Jesus" is at all appealed to, has an ultra-refinement which is
unscriptural and rationalistic. It is out of touch with St. Paul (Col.
i. 14-20), with the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb. ix. 14)
(a passage strikingly like this verse), with St. Peter (1 Pet. i. 19),
with St. John in this Epistle, with the redeemed in heaven (Apoc. v.
9). (2) A good deal of feeling against representations in sacred art
seems to have its origin in this sort of unconscious semi-doketism. It
appears to be thought that when representation supersedes symbolism,
Christian thought and feeling necessarily lose everything and gain
nothing. But surely it ought to be remembered that for a being like man
there are two worlds, one of ideas, the other of facts; one of
philosophy, the other of history. The one is filled with things which
are conceived, the other with things which are done. One contents
itself with a shadowy symbol, the other is not satisfied except by a
concrete representation. So we venture respectfully to think that the
image of the dead Christ is not foreign to Scripture or Scriptural
thought; simply because, as a fact, He died. Calvary, the tree, the
wounds, were not ideal. The crucifixion was not a symbol for dainty and
refined abstract theorists. The form of the Crucified was not veiled by
silver mists and crowned with roses. He who realises the meaning of the
"Blood of Jesus," and is consistent, will not be severe upon the
expression of the same thought in another form.
"Note that which Estius hath upon the blood of his Son, that in them
there is a confutation of three heresies at once: the Manichees, who
deny the truth of Christ's human nature, since, as Alexander said of
his wound, clamat me esse hominem, it proclaimeth me a man, we may say
of His blood, for had He not been man He could not have bled, have
died; the Ebionites, who deny Him to be God, since, being God's natural
Son, He must needs be of the same essence with Himself; and the
Nestorians, who make two persons, which, if true, the blood of Christ
the man could not have been called the blood of Christ the Son of God."
"That which I conceive here chiefly to be taken notice of is, that our
Apostle contents not himself to say the blood of Jesus Christ, but he
addeth His Son, to intimate to us how this blood became available to
our cleansing, to wit, as it was the blood not merely of the Son of
Mary, the Son of David, the Son of Man, but of Him who was also the Son
of God."
"Behold, O sinner, the exceeding love of thy Saviour, who, that He
might cleanse thee when polluted in thy blood, was pleased to shed His
own blood. Indeed, the pouring out of Christ's blood was a
super-excellent work of charity; hence it is that these two are joined
together; and when the Scripture speaketh of His love, it presently
annexeth His sufferings. We read, that when Christ wept for Lazarus,
John xi. 36, the standers by said, "See how He loved him." Surely if
His tears, much more His blood, proclaimeth His affection towards us.
The Jews were the scribes, the nails were the pens, His body the white
paper, and His blood the red ink; and the characters were love,
exceeding love, and these so fairly written that he which runs may read
them. I shut up this with that of devout Bernard, Behold and look upon
the rose of His bloody passion, how His redness bespeaketh His flaming
love, there being, as it were, a contention betwixt His passion and
affection: this, that it might be hotter; that, that it might be
redder. Nor had His sufferings been so red with blood had not His heart
been inflamed with love. Oh let us beholding magnify, magnifying
admire, and admiring praise Him for His inestimable goodness, saying
with the holy Apostle (Apoc. i. 5), 'Unto Him that loved us, and washed
us from our sins in His blood, be honour and glory for ever.'"--Dean
Hardy (pp. 77, 78.) Observe on this verse its unison of thought and
feeling with Apoc. i. 5, xxii. 14. [164]
Chap. ii. 1. We have an Advocate] literally Paraclete. One called in to
aid him whose cause is to be tried or petition considered. The word is
used only by St. John, four times in the Gospel, of the Holy Ghost;
[165] once here of Christ.
"And now, O thou drooping sinner, let me bespeak thee in St. Austin's
[166] language: Thou committest thy cause to an eloquent lawyer, and
art safe; how canst thou miscarry, when thou hast the Word to be thy
advocate? Let me put this question to thee: If, when thou sinnest, thou
hadst all the angels, saints, confessors, martyrs, in those celestial
mansions to beg thy pardon, dost thou think they would not speed? I
tell thee, one word out of Christ's mouth is more worth than all their
conjoined entreaties. When, therefore, thy daily infirmities discourage
thee, or particular falls affright thee, imagine with thyself that thou
heardst thy advocate pleading for thee in these or the like
expressions: O My loving Father, look upon the face of Thine Anointed;
behold the hands, and feet, and side of Thy crucified Christ! I had no
sins of My own for which I thus suffered; no, it was for the sins of
this penitent wretch, who in My name sued for pardon! Father, I am Thy
Son, the Son of Thy love, Thy bosom, who plead with Thee; it is for Thy
child, Thy returning penitent child, I plead. That for which I pray is
no more than what I paid for; I have merited pardon for all that come
to Me! Oh let those merits be imputed, and that pardon granted to this
poor sinner! Cheer up, then, thou disconsolate soul, Christ is an
advocate for thee, and therefore do not despair, but believe; and
believing, rejoice; and rejoicing, triumph."--Dean Hardy (pp. 128,
129). In these days, when petitions to Jesus to pray for us have crept
into hymns and are creeping into liturgies, it may be well to note that
in the remains of the early saints and in the solemn formulas of the
Christian Church, Christ is not asked to pray for us, but to hear our
prayers. The Son is prayed to; the Father is prayed to through the Son;
the Son is never prayed to pray to the Father. (See Greg. Nazianz.,
Oratio xxx., Theologiæ iv., de Filio. See Thomassin, Dogm. Theol., lib.
ix., cap. 6, Tom. iv. 220, 227.)
Ver. 2. Not for ours only.] This large-hearted afterthought reminds one
of St. Paul's "corrective and ampliative" addition; of his chivalrous
abstinence from exclusiveness in thought or word, when having dictated
"Jesus Christ our Lord," his voice falters, and he feels constrained to
say--"both theirs, and ours" (1 Cor. i. 2).
__________________________________________________________________
[157] Acts xvii. 27.
[158] Jonah i. 5.
[159] 1 John ii. 28.
[160] 2 John 9.
[161] Matt. xxiii. 15.
[162] Bouddhism, it is now said, appears to be on the wane, and the
period for its disappearance is gradually approaching, according to the
Boden Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford. In his opinion this creed is
"one of rapidly increasing disintegration and decline," and "as a form
of popular religion Bouddhism is gradually losing its vitality and hold
on the vast populations once loyal to its rule." He computes the number
of Bouddhists at 100,000,000; not 400,000,000 as hitherto estimated;
and places Christianity numerically at the head of all religions--next
Confucianism, thirdly Hinduism, then Bouddhism, and last Mohammedanism.
He affirms that the capacity of Bouddhism for resistance must give way
before the "mighty forces which are destined to sweep the earth."
[163] That modern English writers have been more than just to Mohammed
is proved overwhelmingly by the living Missionary who knows
Mohammedanism best.--Mohammed and Mohammedans. Dr. Koelle.
[164] The inner meaning of 1 John i. 8 exactly = hupakoe kai rhantismos
(1 Peter i. 2). It is the obedient who are sprinkled.
[165] John xiv. 16, 26, xv. 26, xvi. 7.
[166] Aug. in loc.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION III. (1).
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Kai en touto ginoskomen hoti egnokamen auton, ean tas entolas autou
teromen. ho legon, hoti "Egnoka auton," kai tas entolas autou me teron,
pseustes estin, kai en touto he aletheia ouk estin; hos d' an tere
autou ton logon, alethos en touto he agape tou Theou teteleiotai. en
touto ginoskomen hoti en auto esmen. ho legon en auto menein, opheilei,
kathos ekeinos periepatesen, kai autos outos peripatein.
Et in hoc scimus quoniam cognovimus eum, si mandata eius observemus.
Qui dicit se nosse eum et mandata eius non custodit, mendax est, et in
eo veritas non est: qui autem servat verbum eius, vere in eo caritas
Dei perfecta est: in hoc scimus quoniam in ipso sumus. Qui dicit se in
ipso manere debet sicut ille ambulavit et ipse ambulare.
And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He
that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar,
and the truth is not in Him. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily
is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him. He
that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He
walked.
And hereby know we that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He
that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments is a liar, and
the truth is not in him: but whoso keepeth His word, in him verily hath
the love of God been perfected. Hereby know we that we are in Him: he
that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk even as He
walked.
And hereby we do know that we have knowledge of Him, if we observe His
commandments. He that saith I have knowledge of Him and observeth not
His commandments is a liar, and in this man the truth is not. But whoso
observeth His word verily in this man the love of God is perfected.
Hereby know we that we are in Him: he that saith he abideth in Him is
bound, even as He walked, so also himself to be ever walking.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE V.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT LIFE WALK A PERSONAL INFLUENCE.
"He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk even
as He also walked."--1 John ii. 6.
This verse is one of those in reading which we may easily fall into the
fallacy of mistaking familiarity for knowledge.
Let us bring out its meaning with accuracy.
St. John's hatred of unreality, of lying in every form, leads him to
claim in Christians a perfect correspondence between the outward
profession and the inward life, as well as the visible manifestation of
it. "He that saith" always marks a danger to those who are outwardly in
Christian communion. It is the "take notice" of a hidden falsity. He
whose claim, possibly whose vaunt, is that he abideth in Christ, has
contracted a moral debt of far-reaching significance. St. John seems to
pause for a moment. He points to a picture in a page of the scroll
which is beside him--the picture of Christ in the Gospel drawn by
himself; not a vague magnificence, a mere harmony of colour, but a
likeness of absolute historical truth. Every pilgrim of time in the
continuous course of his daily walk, outward and inward, has by the
possession of that Gospel contracted an obligation to be walking by the
one great life-walk of the Pilgrim of eternity. The very depth and
intensity of feeling half hushes the Apostle's voice. Instead of the
beloved Name which all who love it will easily supply, [167] St. John
uses the reverential He, the pronoun which specially belongs to Christ
in the vocabulary of the Epistle. [168] "He that saith he abideth in
Him" is bound, even as He once walked, to be ever walking.
I.
The importance of example in the moral and spiritual life gives
emphasis to this canon of St. John.
Such an example as can be sufficient for creatures like ourselves
should be at once manifested in concrete form and susceptible of ideal
application.
This was felt by a great but unhappily anti-christian thinker, the
exponent of a severe and lofty morality. Mr. Mill fully confesses that
there may be an elevating and an ennobling influence in a Divine ideal;
and thus justifies the apparently startling precept--"be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." [169] But
he considered that some more human model was necessary for the moral
striver. He recommends novel-readers, when they are charmed or
strengthened by some conception of pure manhood or womanhood, to carry
that conception with them into their own lives. He would have them ask
themselves in difficult positions, how that strong and lofty man, that
tender and unselfish woman, would have behaved in similar
circumstances, and so bear about with them a standard of duty at once
compendious and affecting. But to this there is one fatal
objection--that such an elaborate process of make-believe is
practically impossible. A fantastic morality, if it were possible at
all, must be a feeble morality. Surely an authentic example will be
greatly more valuable.
But example, however precious, is made indefinitely more powerful when
it is living example, example crowned by personal influence.
So far as the stain of a guilty past can be removed from those who have
contracted it; they are improvable and capable of restoration, chiefly,
perhaps almost exclusively, by personal influence in some form. When a
process of deterioration and decay has set in in any human soul, the
germ of a more wholesome growth is introduced in nearly every case, by
the transfusion and transplantation of healthier life. We test the
soundness or the putrefaction of a soul by its capacity of receiving
and assimilating this germ of restoration. A parent is in doubt whether
a son is susceptible of renovation, whether he has not become wholly
evil. He tries to bring the young man under the personal influence of a
friend of noble and sympathetic character. Has his son any capacity
left for being touched by such a character; of admiring its strength on
one side, its softness on another? When he is in contact with it, when
he perceives how pure, how self-sacrificing, how true and straight it
is, is there a glow in his face, a trembling of his voice, a moisture
in his eye, a wholesome self-humiliation? Or does he repel all this
with a sneer and a bitter gibe? Has he that evil attribute which is
possessed only by the most deeply corrupt--"they blaspheme, rail at
glories"? [170] The Chaplain of a penitentiary records that among the
most degraded of its inmates was one miserable creature. The Matron met
her with firmness, but with a good will which no hardness could break
down, no insolence overcome. One evening after prayers the Chaplain
observed this poor outcast stealthily kissing the shadow of the Matron
thrown by her candle upon the wall. He saw that the diseased nature was
beginning to be capable of assimilating new life, that the victory of
wholesome personal influence had begun. He found reason for concluding
that his judgment was well founded.
The law of restoration by living example through personal influence
pervades the whole of our human relations under God's natural and moral
government as truly as the principle of mediation. This law also
pervades the system of restoration revealed to us by Christianity. It
is one of the chief results of the Incarnation itself. It begins to act
upon us first, when the Gospels become something more to us than a mere
history, when we realise in some degree how He walked. But it is not
complete until we know that all this is not merely of the past, but of
the present; that He is not dead, but living; that we may therefore use
that little word is about Christ in the lofty sense of St. John--"even
as He is pure;" "in Him is no sin;" "even as He is righteous;" "He is
the propitiation for our sins." If this is true, as it undoubtedly is,
of all good human influence personal and living, is it not true of the
Personal and living Christ in an infinitely higher degree? If the
shadow of Peter overshadowing the sick had some strange efficacy; if
handkerchiefs or aprons from the body of Paul wrought upon the sick and
possessed; what may be the spiritual result of contact with Christ
Himself? Of one of those men specially gifted to raise struggling
natures and of others like him, a true poet lately taken from us has
sung in one of his most glorious strains. Matthew Arnold likens mankind
to a host inexorably bound by divine appointment to march over mountain
and desert to the city of God. But they become entangled in the
wilderness through which they march, split into mutinous factions, and
are in danger of "battering on the rocks" for ever in vain, of dying
one by one in the waste. Then comes the poet's appeal to the "servants
of God":--
"In the hour of need
Of your fainting dispirited race,
Ye like angels appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.
Eyes rekindling, and prayers
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our file,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march--
On, to the bound of the waste--
On to the City of God." [171]
If all this be true of the personal influence of good and strong
men--true in proportion to their goodness and strength--it must be true
of the influence of the Strongest and Best with Whom we are brought
into personal relation by prayer and sacraments, and by meditation upon
the sacred record which tells us what His one life-walk was. Strength
is not wanting upon His part, for He is able to save to the uttermost.
Pity is not wanting; for to use touching words (attributed to St. Paul
in a very ancient apocryphal document), "He alone sympathised with a
world that has lost its way." [172]
Let it not be forgotten that in that of which St. John speaks lies the
true answer to an objection, formulated by the great anti-christian
writer above quoted, and constantly repeated by others. "The ideal of
Christian morality," says Mr. Mill, "is negative rather than positive;
passive rather than active; innocence rather than nobleness; abstinence
from evil, rather than energetic pursuit of good; in its precepts (as
has been well said), 'thou shalt not' predominates unduly over 'thou
shalt.'" [173] The answer is this. (1) A true religious system must
have a distinct moral code. If not, it would be justly condemned for
"expressing itself" (in the words of Mr. Mill's own accusation against
Christianity elsewhere) "in language most general, and possessing
rather the impressiveness of poetry or eloquence than the precision of
legislation." But the necessary formula of precise legislation is,
"thou shalt not"; and without this it cannot be precise. (2) But
further. To say that Christian legislation is negative, a mere string
of "thou shalt nots," is just such a superficial accusation as might be
expected from a man who should enter a church upon some rare occasion,
and happen to listen to the ten commandments, but fall asleep before he
could hear the Epistle and Gospel. The philosopher of duty, Kant, has
told us that the peculiarity of a moral principle, of any proposition
which states what duty is, is to convey the meaning of an imperative
through the form of an indicative. In his own expressive if pedantic
language--"its categorical form involves an epitactic meaning." St.
John asserts that the Christian "ought to walk even as Christ walked."
To every one who receives it, that proposition is therefore precisely
equivalent to a command--"walk as Christ walked." Is it a negative,
passive morality, a mere system of "thou shalt not," which contains
such a precept as that? Does not the Christian religion in virtue of
this alone enforce a great "thou shalt;" which every man who brings
himself within its range will find rising with him in the morning,
following him like his shadow all day long, and lying down with him
when he goes to rest?
II.
It should be clearly understood that in the words "even as He walked,"
the Gospel of St. John is both referred to and attested.
For surely to point with any degree of moral seriousness to an example,
is to presuppose some clear knowledge and definite record of it. No
example can be beautiful or instructive when its shape is lost in
darkness. It has indeed been said by a deeply religious writer, "that
the likeness of the Christian to Christ is to His character, not to the
particular form in which it was historically manifested." And this, of
course, is in one sense a truism. But how else except by this
historical manifestation can we know the character of Christ in any
true sense of the word knowledge? For those who are familiar with the
fourth Gospel, the term "walk" was tenderly significant. For if it was
used with a reminiscence of the Old Testament and of the language of
our Lord, [174] to denote the whole continuous activity of the life of
any man inward and outward, there was another signification which
became entwined with it. St. John had used the word historically [175]
in his Gospel, not without allusion to the Saviour's homelessness on
earth, to His itinerant life of beneficence and of teaching. [176]
Those who first received this Epistle with deepest reverence as the
utterance of the Apostle whom they loved, when they came to the
precept--"walk even as He walked"--would ask themselves how did He
walk? What do we know of the great rule of life thus proposed to us?
The Gospel which accompanied this letter, and with which it was in some
way closely connected, was a sufficient and definite answer.
III.
The character of Christ in his Gospel is thus, according to St. John,
the loftiest ideal of purity, peace, self-sacrifice, unbroken communion
with God; the inexhaustible fountain of regulated thoughts, high aims,
holy action, constant prayer.
We may advert to one aspect of this perfection as delineated in the
fourth Gospel--our Lord's way of doing small things, or at least things
which in human estimation appear to be small.
The fourth chapter of that Gospel contains a marvellous record of word
and work. Let us trace that record back to its beginning. There are
seeds of spiritual life scattered in many hearts which were destined to
yield a rich harvest in due time; there is the account of one sensuous
nature, quickened and spiritualised; there are promises which have been
for successive centuries as a river of God to weary natures. All these
results issue from three words spoken by a tired traveller, sitting
naturally over a well--"give me to drink."
We take another instance. There is one passage in St. John's Gospel
which divides with the prooemium of his Epistle, the glory of being the
loftiest, the most prolonged, the most sustained, in the Apostle's
writings.
It is the prelude of a work which might have seemed to be of little
moment. Yet all the height of a great ideal is over it, like the vault
of heaven; all the power of a Divine purpose is under it, like the
strength of the great deep; all the consciousness of His death, of His
ascension, of His coming dominion, of His Divine origin, of His session
at God's right hand--all the hoarded love in His heart for His own
which were in the world--passes by some mysterious transference into
that little incident of tenderness and of humiliation. He sets an
everlasting mark upon it, not by a basin of gold crusted with gems, nor
by mixing precious scents with the water which He poured out, nor by
using linen of the finest tissue, but by the absolute perfection of
love and dutiful humility in the spirit and in every detail of the
whole action. It is one more of those little chinks through which the
whole sunshine of heaven streams in upon those who have eyes to see.
[177]
The underlying secret of this feature of our Lord's character is told
by Himself. "My meat is to be ever doing the will of Him that sent Me,
and so when the time comes by one great decisive act to finish His
work." [178] All along the course of that life-walk there were smaller
preludes to the great act which won our redemption--multitudinous daily
little perfect epitomes of love and sacrifice, without which the
crowning sacrifice would not have been what it was. The plan of our
life must, of course, be constructed on a scale as different as the
human from the Divine. Yet there is a true sense in which this lesson
of the great life may be applied to us.
The apparently small things of life must not be despised or neglected
on account of their smallness, by those who would follow the precept of
St. John. Patience and diligence in petty trades, in services called
menial, in waiting on the sick and old, in a hundred such works, all
come within the sweep of this net, with its lines that look as thin as
cobwebs, and which yet for Christian hearts are stronger than fibres of
steel--"walk even as He walked." This, too, is our only security. A
French poet has told a beautiful tale. Near a river which runs between
French and German territory, a blacksmith was at work one snowy night
near Christmas time. He was tired out, standing by his forge, and
wistfully looking towards his little home, lighted up a short quarter
of a mile away, and wife and children waiting for their festal supper,
when he should return. It came to the last piece of his work, a rivet
which it was difficult to finish properly; for it was of peculiar
shape, intended by the contractor who employed him to pin the metal
work of a bridge which he was constructing over the river. The smith
was sorely tempted to fail in giving honest work, to hurry over a job
which seemed at once so troublesome and so trifling. But some good
angel whispered to the man that he should do his best. He turned to the
forge with a sigh, and never rested until the work was as complete as
his skill could make it. The poet carries us on for a year or two. War
breaks out. A squadron of the blacksmith's countrymen is driven over
the bridge in headlong flight. Men, horses, guns, try its solidity. For
a moment or two the whole weight of the mass really hangs upon the one
rivet. There are times in life when the whole weight of the soul also
hangs upon a rivet; the rivet of sobriety, of purity, of honesty, of
command of temper. Possibly we have devoted little or no honest work to
it in the years when we should have perfected the work; and so, in the
day of trial, the rivet snaps, and we are lost.
There is one word of encouragement which should be finally spoken for
the sake of one class of God's servants.
Some are sick, weary, broken, paralysed, it may be slowly dying.
What--they sometimes ask--have we to do with this precept? Others who
have hope, elasticity, capacity of service, may walk as He walked; but
we can scarcely do so. Such persons should remember what walking in the
Christian sense is--all life's activity inward and outward. Let them
think of Christ upon His cross. He was fixed to it, nailed hand and
foot. Nailed; yet never--not when He trod upon the waves, not when He
moved upward through the air to His throne--never did He walk more
truly because He walked in the way of perfect love. It is just whilst
looking at the moveless form upon the tree that we may hear most
touchingly the great "thou shalt"--thou shalt walk even as He walked.
IV.
As there is a literal, so there is a mystical walking as Christ walked.
This is an idea which deeply pervades St. Paul's writings. Is it His
birth? We are born again. Is it His life? We walk with Him in newness
of life. Is it His death? We are crucified with Him. Is it His burial?
We are buried with Him. Is it His resurrection? We are risen again with
Him. Is it His ascension--His very session at God's right hand? "He
hath raised us up and made us sit together with Him in heavenly
places." They know nothing of St. Paul's mind who know nothing of this
image of a soul seen in the very dust of death, loved, pardoned,
quickened, elevated, crowned, throned. It was this conception at work
from the beginning in the general consciousness of Christians which
moulded round itself the order of the Christian year.
It will illustrate this idea for us if we think of the difference
between the outside and the inside of a church.
Outside on some high spire we see the light just lingering far up,
while the shadows are coldly gathering in the streets below; and we
know that it is winter. Again the evening falls warm and golden on the
churchyard, and we recognise the touch of summer. But inside it is
always God's weather; it is Christ all the year long. Now the Babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, or circumcised with the knife of the law,
manifested to the Gentiles, or manifesting Himself with a glory that
breaks through the veil; now the Man tempted in the wilderness; now the
victim dying on the cross; now the Victor risen, ascended, sending the
Holy Spirit; now for twenty-five Sundays worshipped as the Everlasting
Word with the Father and the Holy Ghost. In this mystical following of
Christ also, the one perpetual lesson is--"he that saith he abideth in
Him, ought himself also so to walk even as He walked."
NOTES.
Ch. ii. 3-11.
Ver. 4. A liar.] There are many things which the "sayer" says by the
language of his life rather than by his lips to others: many things
which he says to himself. "We lead ourselves astray" (i. 8). We "say" I
have knowledge of Him, while yet we observe not His commandments.
Strange that we can lie to the one being who knows the truth
thoroughly--self; and having lied, can get the lie believed,--
"Like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie."
Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2.
Ver. 7. Fresh.] There are two quite different words alike translated
new in A. V.: one of these is the word used here (kainos); the other
(neos). The first always signifies new in quality--intellectual,
ethical, spiritual novelty--that which is opposed to, which replaces
and supersedes, the antiquated, inferior, outworn; new in the world of
thought. (Heb. viii. 13 states this with perfect precision.) It may
sometimes not inadequately be rendered fresh ("youngly," Shakespeare,
Coriolanus). The other term (neos) is simply recent; new
chronologically in the world of time.
Which ye heard from the beginning.] Probably a recognition of St.
Paul's teaching at Ephesus, and of his Epistle to the Ephesians.
Ver. 8. To many commentators this verse seems almost of insoluble
difficulty. Surely, however, the meaning is clear enough for those who
will place themselves within the atmosphere of St. John's thought.
"Again a fresh commandment I am writing to you" [this commandment,
charity, is no unreal and therefore delusive standard of duty]. Taken
as one great whole (ho) it is true, matter of observable historical
fact, because it is realised in Him who gave the commandment; capable
of realisation, and even in measure realised in you. [And this can be
actually done by Christians, and recognised more and more by others],
"because the shadow is drifting by from the landscape even of the
world, and the light, the very light, enlighteneth by a new ideal and a
new example."
Ver. 10. Scandal.] In Greek is the rendering of two Hebrew words. (1)
That against which we trip and stumble, a stumbling-block; (2) A hook
or snare.
Ver. 11 . The terrible force of this truly Hebraistic parallelism
should be noted.
1. He that hateth his brother is in darkness.
2. " " " walketh in darkness.
3. " " " knoweth not where he goeth.
4. " " " darkness has blinded his eyes.
The third beat of the parallelism contains an allusion to that Cain
among the nations, the Jewish people in our Lord's time. (John xii.
35.)
In illustration of the powerful expression, ("darkness has blinded his
eyes") the present writer quoted a striking passage from Professor
Drummond, who adduces a parallel for the Christian's loss of the
spiritual faculty, by the atrophy of organs which takes place in moles,
and in the fish in dark caverns. (Speaker's Commentary, in loc.) But as
regards the mole at least, a great observer of Nature entirely denies
the alleged atrophy. Mr. Buckland quotes Dr. Lee in a paper, in the
Proceedings of the Royal Society, where he says,--"the eye of the mole
presents us with an instance of an organ which is rudimentary, not by
arrest of development, but through disuse, aided perhaps by natural
selection." But Mr. Buckland asserts that "the same great Wisdom who
made the mole's teeth the most beautiful set of insectivorous teeth
among animals, also made its eye fit for the work it has to do. The
mole has been designed to prey upon earthworms; they will not come up
to the surface to him, so he must go down into the earth to them. For
this purpose his eyes are fitted." (Life of F. Buckland, pp. 247, 248).
__________________________________________________________________
[167] "Nomen facile supplent credentes, plenum pectus habentes memoriâ
Domini."--Bengel.
[168] Ekeinos in our Epistle belongs to Christ in every place but one
where it occurs (1 John ii. 6, iii. 3, 5, 7, 16, iv. 17; cf. John i.
18, ii. 21). It is very much equivalent to our reverent usage of
printing the pronoun which refers to Christ with a capital letter.
[169] Matt. v. 48.
[170] doxas blasphemountes (2 Peter ii. 10; Jude vs. 8).
[171] Poems by Matthew Arnold ("Rugby Chapel," Nov. 1857), vol. ii.,
pp. 251, 255.
[172] hos monos sunepathesen planomeno kosmo. Acta Paul. et Thec. 16,
Acta. Apost. Apoc. 47. Edit. Tischendorf.
[173] On Liberty. John Stuart Mill (chap. iii.).
[174] John viii. 12-35. For Apostolic usage of the word, see Acts i.
21; Rom. vi. 4; Ephes. ii. 10; Col. iii. 7.
[175] John vii. 1.
[176] "Ambulando docebat."--Bretschneider.
[177] John xiii. 1-6.
[178] Hina poio ... kai teleioso (John iv. 34).
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION III. (2)
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Agapetoi, ouk entolen kainen grapho humin, all' entolen palaian hen
eichete ap' arches; he entole he palaia estin ho logos hon ekousate.
palin entolen kainen grapho humin, ho estin alethes en auto kai en
humin, hoti he skia paragetai kai to phos to alethinon ede phainei. ho
legon en to photi einai kai ton adelphon autou mison en te skotia estin
heos arti. agapon ton adelphon autou en to photi menei. kai skandalon
en auto ouk estin. ho de mison ton adelphon autou en te skotia estin
kai en te skotia peripatei, kai ouk oide pou hupagei, hoti he skotia
etuphlosen tous ophthalmous autou.
Carissimi non mandatum novum scribo vobis, sed mandatum vetus quod
habuistis ab initio: mandatum vetus est verbum quod audistis. Iterum
mandatum novum scribo vobis, quod est verum et in ipso et in vobis,
quoniam tenebræ transierunt et lumen verum jam lucet. Qui dicit se in
luce esse et fratrem suum odit, in tenebris est usque adhuc. Qui
diligit fratrem suum in lumine manet, et scandalum in eo non est: qui
autem odit fratrem suum, in tenebris est, et in tenebris ambulat et
nescit quo eat, quoniam tenebræ obcæcaverunt oculos eius.
Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment
which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which
ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto
you, which thing is true in Him and in you: because the darkness is
past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light,
and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth
his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of
stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and
walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that
darkness hath blinded his eyes.
Beloved, no new commandment write I unto you, but an old commandment
which ye had from the beginning: the old commandment is the word which
ye heard. Again, a new commandment write I unto you, which thing is
true in Him and in you: because the darkness is passing away, and the
true light already shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and
hateth his brother, is in the darkness even until now. He that loveth
his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of
stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness,
and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because
the darkness hath blinded his eyes.
Beloved, no fresh commandment I am writing unto you, but an old
commandment which ye had from the beginning. The commandment, the old
commandment, is the word which ye heard. Again, a fresh commandment I
am writing unto you, which thing [as a whole] is true in Him and in
you: because the shadow is drifting by, and the light, the very light,
is already enlightening. He that saith he is in the light and hateth
his brother, in the darkness is he hitherto. He that loveth his brother
in the light abideth he, and scandal in him there is not. But he that
hateth his brother in the darkness is he, and in the darkness walketh
he, and he knoweth not whither he goeth because the darkness hath
blinded his eyes.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION III. (3)
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Grapho humin, teknia, hoti apheontai humin ai hamartiai dia to honoma
autou. grapho humin, pateres, hoti egnokate ton ap' arches. grapho
humin, neaniskoi, hoti nenikekate ton poneron. egrapsa humin, paidia,
hoti egnokate ton patera. egrapsa humin, pateres, hoti egnokate ton ap'
arches. Egrapsa humin, neaniskoi, hoti ischuroi este, kai ho logos tou
Theou en humin menei, kai nenikekate ton poneron. me agapate ton
kosmon, mede ta en to kosmo. ean tis agapa ton kosmon, ouk estin he
agape tou patros en auto; hoti pan to en to kosmo, he epithumia tes
sarkos kai he epithumia ton ophthalmon kai he alazonia tou biou, ouk
estin ek tou patros, alla ek tou kosmou estin; kai ho kosmos paragetai
kai he epithumia autou; ho de poion to thelema tou Theou menei eis ton
aiona.
Scribo vobis, filioli, quoniam remittentur vobis, peccata propter nomen
eius. Scribo vobis, patres, quoniam cognovistis eum qui ab initio est.
Scribo vobis, adolescentes, quoniam vicistis malignum. Scribo vobis,
infantes, quia cognovistis patrem. Scripsi vobis, iuvenes quia fortes
estis et verbum Dei in vobis manet et vicistis malignum. Nolite
diligere mundum ne que eaquæ in mundo sunt. Si quis diligit mundum, non
est caritas Patris in eo: quoniam omne quod in mundo est,
concupiscentia carnis est, et concupiscentia oculorum, et superbia
vitæ; quæ non est ex Patre, sed ex mundo est. Et mundus transibit et
concupiscentia eius: qui autem facit voluntatem Dei, manet in eternum.
I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you
for His name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known
Him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye
have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children,
because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers,
because ye have known Him that is from the beginning. I have written
unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth
in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is
not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and
the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
I write unto you, my little children, because your sins are forgiven
you for His name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye know Him
that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye
have overcome the evil one. I have written unto you, little children,
because ye know the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because
ye know Him which is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young
men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye
have overcome the evil one. Love not the world, neither the things that
are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is
not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and
the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father,
but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof:
but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
I am writing unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven you for
His name's sake. I am writing unto you, fathers, because ye have
knowledge of Him who is from the beginning. I am writing unto you,
young men, because ye are conquerors of the wicked one.
I have written unto you, little children, because ye have knowledge of
the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have knowledge
of Him who is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men,
because ye are strong and the word of God abideth in you, and ye are
conquerors of the wicked one.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any
man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that
is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the
arrogancy of living, is not from the Father, but from the world is it.
And the world is drifting by, and the lust of it: but he that is doing
the will of God abideth for ever.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE VI.
THE WORLD WHICH WE MUST NOT LOVE.
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For
all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the
world."--1 John ii. 15, 16.
An adequate development of words so compressed and pregnant as these
would require a separate treatise, or series of treatises. [179] But if
we succeed in grasping St. John's conception of the world, we shall
have a key that will open to us this cabinet of spiritual thought.
I.
In the writings of St. John the world is always found in one or other
of four senses, as may be decided by the context. (1) It means the
creation, [180] the universe. So our Lord in His High-priestly
prayer--"Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." [181] (2)
It is used for the earth locally as the place where man resides; [182]
and whose soil the Son of God trod for awhile. "I am no more in the
world, but these are in the world." [183] (3) It denotes the chief
inhabitants of the earth, they to whom the counsels of God mainly
point--men universally. Such a transference is common in nearly all
languages. Both the inhabitants of a building and the material
structure which contains them, are called "a house;" and the
inhabitants are frequently bitterly blamed, while the beauty of the
structure is passionately admired. In this sense there is a magnificent
width in the word world. We cannot but feel indignant at attempts to
gird its grandeur within the narrow rim of a human system. "The bread
that I will give," said He who knew best, "is My flesh which I will
give for the life of the world." [184] "He is the propitiation for the
whole world," writes the Apostle at the beginning of this chapter. In
this sense, if we would imitate Christ, if we would aspire to the
Father's perfection, "love not the world" must be tempered by that
other tender oracle--"God so loved the world." [185]
In none of these senses can the world here be understood. [186]
There remains then (4) a fourth signification, which has two allied
shades of thought. World is employed to cover the whole present
existence, with its blended good and evil--susceptible of elevation by
grace, susceptible also of deeper depths of sin and ruin. But yet again
the indifferent meaning passes into one that is wholly evil, wholly
within a region of darkness. The first creation was pronounced by God
in each department "good" collectively; when crowned by God's
masterpiece in man, "very good." [187] "All things," our Apostle tells
us, "were made through Him (the Word), and without Him was not any
thing made that was made." [188] But as that was a world wholly good,
so is this a world wholly evil. This evil world is not God's creation,
drew not its origin from Him. All that is in it came out from it, from
nothing higher. [189] This wholly evil world is not the material
creation; if it were, we should be landed in dualism, or Manicheism. It
is not an entity, an actual tangible thing, a creation. It is not of
God's world that St. John cries in that last fierce word of abhorrence
which he flings at it as he sees the shadowy thing like an evil spirit
made visible in an idol's arms--"the world lieth wholly in the evil
one." [190]
This anti-world, this caricature of creation, this thing of negations,
is spun out of three abuses of the endowment of God's glorious gift of
free-will to man; out of three noble instincts ignobly used. First,
"the lust of the flesh"--of which flesh is the seat, and supplies the
organic medium through which it works. The flesh is that softer part of
the frame which by the network of the nerves is intensely susceptible
of pleasurable and painful sensations; capable of heroic patient
submission to the higher principles of conscience and spirit, [191]
capable also of frightful rebellion. Of all theologians St. John is the
least likely to fall into the exaggeration of libelling the flesh as
essentially evil. Is it not he who, whether in his Gospel, or in his
Epistles, delights to speak of the flesh of Jesus, to record words in
which He refers to it? [192] Still the flesh brings us into contact
with all sins which are sins that spring from, and end in, the senses.
Shall we ask for a catalogue of particulars from St. John? Nay, we
cannot expect that the virgin Apostle, who received the virgin Mother
from the Virgin Lord upon the cross, will sully his virgin pen with
words so abhorred. When he has uttered the lust of the flesh his
shudder is followed by an eloquent silence. We can fill up the blank
too well--drunkenness, gluttony, thoughts and motions which spring from
deliberate, wilfully cherished, rebellious sensuality; which fill many
of us with pain and fear, and wring cries and bitter tears from
penitents, and even from saints. The second, abuse of free-will, the
second element in this world which is not God's world, is the desire of
which the eyes are the seat--"the lust of the eyes." To the two sins
which we instinctively associate with this phrase--voluptuousness and
curiosity of the senses or the soul--Scripture might seem to add envy,
which derives so much of its aliment from sight. In this lies the
Christian's warning against wilfully indulging in evil sights, bad
plays, bad books, bad pictures. He who is outwardly the spectator of
these things becomes inwardly the actor of them. The eye is, so to
speak, the burning-glass of the soul; it draws the rays from their evil
brightness to a focus, and may kindle a raging fire in the heart. Under
this department comes unregulated spiritual or intellectual curiosity.
The first need not trouble us so much as it did Christians in a more
believing time. Comparatively very few are in danger from the
planchette or from astrology. But surely it is a rash thing for an
ordinary mind, without a clear call of duty, without any adequate
preparation, to place its faith within the deadly grip of some powerful
adversary. People really seem to have absolutely no conscience about
reading anything--the last philosophical Life of Christ, or the last
romance; of which the titles might be with advantage exchanged, for the
philosophical history is a light romance, and the romance is a heavy
philosophy. The third constituent in the evil anti-trinity of the
anti-world is "the pride" (the arrogancy, gasconade, almost swagger)
"of life," of which the lower life [193] is the seat. The thought is
not so much of outward pomp and ostentation as of that false pride
which arises in the heart. The arrogancy is within; the gasconade plays
its "fantastic tricks before high heaven." And each of these three
elements (making up as they do collectively all that is "in the world"
and springing out of the world) is not a substantive thing, not an
original ingredient of man's nature, or among the forms of God's world;
it is the perversion of an element which had a use that was noble, or
at least innocent. For first comes "the lust of the flesh." Take those
two objects to which this lust turns with a fierce and perverted
passion. The possession of flesh in itself leads man to crave for the
necessary support to his native weakness. The mutual craving for the
love of beings so like and so unlike as man and woman, if it be a
weakness, has at least a most touching and exquisite side. Again, is
not a yearning for beauty gratified through the eyes? Were they not
given for the enjoyment, for the teaching, at once high and sweet, of
Nature and of Art? Art may be a moral and spiritual discipline. The
ideas of Beauty from gifted minds by cunning hands transferred to, and
stamped upon, outward things, come from the ancient and uncreated
Beauty, whose beauty is as perfect as His truth and strength. Still
further; in the lower life, and in its lawful use, there was intended
to be a something of quiet satisfaction, a certain restfulness, at
times making us happy and triumphant. And lo! for all this, not
moderate fare and pure love, not thoughtful curiosity and the sweet
pensiveness which is the best tribute to the beautiful--not a wise
humility which makes us feel that our times are in God's hands and our
means His continual gift--but degraded senses, low art, evil
literature, a pride which is as grovelling as it is godless.
These three typical summaries of the evil tendencies in the exercise of
free-will correspond with a remarkable fulness to the two narratives of
trial which give us the compendium and general outline of all human
temptation.
Our Lord's three temptations answer to this division. The lust of the
flesh is in essence the rebellion of the lower appetites, inherent to
creaturely dependence, against the higher principle or law. The nearest
and only conceivable approach to this in the sinless Man would be in
His seeking lawful support by unlawful means--procuring food by a
miraculous exertion of power, which only would have become sinful, or
short of the highest goodness, by some condition of its exercise at
that time and in that place. An appeal to the desire for beauty and
glory, with an implied hint of using them for God's greater honour, is
the essence of the second temptation; the one possible approximation to
the "lust of the eyes" in that perfect character. The interior
deception of some touch of pride in the visible support of angels
wafting the Son of God through the air is Satan's one sinister way of
insinuating to the Saviour something akin to "the pride of life."
In the case of the other earlier typical trials it will be observed
that while the temptations fit into the same threefold framework, they
are placed in an order which exactly reverses that of St. John. For in
Eden the first approach is through "pride"; the magnificent promise of
elevation in the scale of being, of the knowledge that would win the
wonder of the spiritual world. "For God doth know that in the day ye
eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil." [194] The next step is that which directs the
curiosity both of the senses and of the aspiring mind to the object
forbidden--"when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one
wise." [195] Then seems to have come some strange and sad rebellion of
the lower nature, filling their souls with shame; some bitter
revelation of the law of sin in their members; some knowledge that they
were contaminated by the "lust of the flesh." [196] The order of the
temptation in the narrative of Moses is historical; St. John's order is
moral and spiritual, answering to the facts of life. The "lust of the
flesh" which may approach the child through childish greed, grows
apace. At first it is half unconscious; then it becomes coarse and
palpable. In the man's desire acting with unregulated curiosity,
through ambition of knowledge at any price, searching out for itself
books and other instruments with deliberate desire to kindle lust, the
"lust of the eyes" ceases not its fatal influence. The crowning sin of
pride with its selfishness, which is self apart from God as well as
from the brother, finds its place in the "pride of life."
III.
We may now be in a position to see more clearly against what world the
Primate of early Christendom pronounced his anathema, and launched his
interdict, and why?
What "world" did he denounce?
Clearly not the world as the creation, the universe. Not again the
earth locally. God made and ordered all things. Why should we not love
them with a holy and a blameless love? Only we should not love them in
themselves; we should not cling to them forgetting Him. Suppose that
some husband heaped beautiful and costly presents upon his wife whom he
loved. At last with the intuition of love he begins to see what is the
secret of such cold imitation of love as that icy heart can give. She
loves him not--his riches, not the man; his gifts, not the giver. And
thus loving with that frigid love which has no heart in it, there is no
true love; her heart is another's. Gifts are given that the giver may
be loved in them. If it is true that "gifts are nought when givers
prove unkind," it is also true that there is a sort of adultery of the
heart when the taker is unkind--because the gift is valuable, not
because the bestower is dear. [197] And so the world, God's beautiful
world, now becomes to us an idol. If we are so lost in the procession
of Nature, in the march of law, in the majestic growth, in the stars
above and in the plants below, that we forget the Lawgiver, who from
such humble beginnings has brought out a world of beauty and order; if
with modern poets we find content, calm, happiness, purity, rest,
simply in contemplating the glaciers, the waves, and the stars; then we
look at the world even in this sense in a way which is a violation of
St. John's rule. Yet again, the world which is now condemned is not
humanity. There is no real Christianity in taking black views, and
speaking bitter things, about the human society to which we belong, and
the human nature of which we are partakers. No doubt Christianity
believes that man "is very far gone from original righteousness;" that
there is a "corruption in the nature of every man that naturally is
engendered of the offspring of Adam." Yet the utterers of unwholesome
apophthegms, the suspecters of their kind, are not Christian thinkers.
The philosophic historian, whose gorge rose at the doctrine of the
Fall, thought much worse of man practically than the Fathers of the
Church. They bowed before martyrdom and purity, and believed in them
with a child-like faith. For Gibbon, the martyr was not quite so true,
nor the virgin quite so pure, nor the saint quite so holy. He Who knew
human nature best, Who has thrown that terrible ray of light into the
unlit gulf of the heart when He tells us "what proceeds out of the
heart of man," [198] had yet the ear which was the first to hear the
trembling of the one chord that yet kept healthful time and tune in the
harlot's passionate heart. He believed that man was recoverable; lost,
but capable of being found. After all, in this sense there is something
worthy of love in man. "God so loved" (not so hated) "the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son." Shall we say that we are to hate the
world which He loved?
And now we come to that world which God never loved, never will love,
never will reconcile to Himself,--which we are not to love.
This is most important to see; for there is always a danger in setting
out with a stricter standard than Christ's, a narrower road than the
narrow one which leads to heaven. Experience proves that they who begin
with standards of duty which are impossibly high end with standards of
duty which are sometimes sadly low. Such men have tried the
impracticable, and failed; the practicable seems to be too hard for
them ever afterwards. They who begin by anathematising the world in
things innocent, indifferent, or even laudable, not rarely end by a
reaction of thought which believes that the world is nothing and
nowhere.
But there is such a thing as the world in St. John's sense--an evil
world brought into existence by the abuse of our free-will; filled by
the anti-trinity, by "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life."
Let us not confuse "the world" with the earth, with the whole race of
man, with general society, with any particular set, however much some
sets are to be avoided. Look at the thing fairly. Two people, we will
say, go to London, to live there. One, from circumstances of life and
position, naturally falls into the highest social circle. Another has
introductions to a smaller set, with an apparently more serious
connection. Follow the first some evening. He drives to a great
gathering. The room which he enters is ablaze with light; jewelled
orders sparkle upon men's coats, and fair women move in exquisite
dresses. We look at the scene and we say--"what worldly society has the
man fallen into!" Perhaps so, in a sense. But about the same time the
other walks to a little room with humbler adjuncts, where a grave and
apparently serious circle meet together. We are able to look in there
also, and we exclaim--"this is serious society, unworldly society."
Perhaps so again. Yet let us read the letters of Mary Godolphin. She
bore a life unspotted by the world in the dissolute court of Charles
II., because the love of the Father was in her. In small serious
circles are there no hidden lusts which blaze up in scandals? Is there
no vanity, no pride, no hatred? In the world of Charles II.'s court
Mary Godolphin lived out of the world which God hated; in the religious
world not a few, certainly, live in the world which is not God's. For
once more, the world is not so much a place--though at times its power
seems to have been drawn into one intense focus, as in the empire of
which Rome was the centre, and which may have been in the Apostle's
thought in the following verse. In the truest and deepest sense the
world consists of our own spiritual surrounding; it is the place which
we make for our own souls. No walls that ever were reared can shut out
the world from us; the "Nun of Kenmare" found that it followed her into
the seemingly spiritual retreat of a severe Order. The world in its
essence is subtler and thinner than the most infinitesimal of the
bacterian germs in the air. They can be strained off by the exquisite
apparatus of a man of science. At a certain height they cease to exist.
But the world may be wherever we are; we carry it with us wherever we
go, it lasts while our lives last. No consecration can utterly banish
it even from within the church's walls; it dares to be round us while
we kneel, and follows us into the presence of God.
(2) Why does God hate this "world"--the world in this sense? St. John
tells us. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him." Deep in every heart must be one or other of two loves. There is
no room for two master-passions. There is an expulsive power in all
true affection. What tenderness and pathos, how much of expostulation,
more potent because reserved--"the love of the Father is not in him"!
He has told all his "little ones" that he has written to them because
they "know the Father." St. John does not use sacred names at random.
Even Voltaire felt that there was something almost awful in hearing
Newton pronounce the name of God. Such in an incomparably higher degree
is the spirit of St. John. In this section he writes of "the love of
the Father," [199] and of the "will of God." [200] The first title has
more sweetness than majesty; the second more majesty than sweetness.
[201] He would throw into his plea some of the winningness of one who
uses this as a resistless argument with a tempted but loving child--an
argument often successful when every other fails. "If you do this, your
Father will not love you; you will not be His child." We have but to
read this with the hearts of God's dear children. Then we shall find
that if the "love not" of this verse contains "words of extirpation;"
[202] it ends with others which are intended to draw us with cords of a
man, and with bands of love.
__________________________________________________________________
[179] After all deductions for the lack of accurate and searching
textual exegesis, perhaps Bossuet's "Traité de la concupiscence, ou
Exposition de ces Paroles de Saint Jean, 1 John ii. 15-17" (OEuvres de
Bossuet, Tom. vii., 380-420), remains unrivalled.
[180] The word kosmos originally signified ornament (chiefly perhaps of
dress); figuratively it came to denote order. It was first applied by
Pythagoras to the universe, from the conception of the order, which
reigns in it (Plut., de Plac. Phil., ii. 1). From schools of philosophy
it passed into the language of poets and writers of elevated prose. It
is somewhat singular that the Romans, possibly from Greek influence,
came to apply "mundus" by the same process to the world, as it had also
originally signified ornament, especially of female dress (See Richard
Bentley against Boyle, Opera Philol., 347-445, and Notes, Humboldt's
Cosmos, xiii.). In the LXX. kosmos does not appear as the translation
of slm its spiritual equivalent in Hebrew; but very often in the sense
of "ornament" and "order." (See Tromm., Concord. Gr. in LXX., 1, 913),
but it is found as world several times in the Apocrypha (Wisdom vi. 26,
vii. 18, ix. 3, xi. 18, xv. 14; 2 Mac. iii. 12, vii. 9-23, viii. 18,
xiii. 14).
[181] John xvii. 24.
[182] In Hebrew tvl habitable globe; translated oikoumene in LXX. (see
Psalm lxxxix. 11).
[183] John v. 11.
[184] John vi. 31; 1 John ii. 2.
[185] John iii. 16. It may be added that these are passages where the
world as humanity generally passes into the darker meaning of that
portion of it which is actively hostile to God. John xv. 18, 19, .
[186] See note on ver. 16 at the end of the next Discourse.
[187] Gen. i. 31.
[188] John i. 3.
[189] The writer does not happen to remember any commentator who has
pointed out this subtle but powerful thought, pan to en to kosmo--ek
tou kosmou estin (1 John ii. 16).
[190] 1 John v. 19.
[191] John xiv. 1; 1 John iv. 2, 3; 2 John 7.
[192] John vi. 51, 53-56; 1 John iv. 2, 3; 2 John 7.
[193] he alazonia tou biou.
[194] Gen. iii. 5.
[195] Gen. iii. 6.
[196] Gen. iii. 7.
[197] S. Augustin., Tract. in Joann. Epist.
[198] Mark vii. 21.
[199] 1 John ii. 15, 16, .
[200] Ibid. ver. 17.
[201] No portion of Prof. Westcott's Commentary is more thorough or
more exquisite than his exposition here. (Epistles of St. John, 66.)
[202] "Extirpantia verba." St. August (in loc.).
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE VII.
USE AND ABUSE OF THE SENSE OF THE VANITY OF THE WORLD.
"The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the
will of God abideth for ever."--1 John ii. 17.
The connection of the passage in which these words occur is not
difficult to trace, for those who are used to follow those "roots below
the stream," those real rather than verbal links latent in the
substance of St. John's thoughts. He addresses those whom he has in
view with a paternal authority, as his "sons" in the faith--with an
endearing variation as "little children." He reminds them of the wisdom
and strength involved in their Christian life. Theirs is the sweetest
flower of knowledge--"to know the Father." Theirs is the grandest crown
of victory--"to overcome the wicked one." But there remains an enemy in
one sense more dangerous than the evil one--the world. By the world in
this place we are to understand that element in the material and human
sphere, in the region of mingled good and evil, which is external to
God, to the influence of His Spirit, to the boundaries of His
Church--nay, which frequently passes over those boundaries. In this
sense it is, so to speak, a fictitious world, a world of wills
separated from God because dominated by self; a shadowy caricature of
creation; an anti-kosmos, which the Author of the kosmos has not made.
What has been well called "the great love not" rings out--"love not the
world." For this admonition two reasons of ever enduring validity are
given by St. John. (1) The application of the law of human nature, that
two master-passions cannot co-exist in one man. "If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him." (2) The unsatisfactory
nature of the world, its incurable transitoriness, its "visible
tendency to non-existence." "The world passeth away, and the lust
thereof."
It will be well to consider how far this thought of the transitoriness
of the world, of its drifting by in ceaseless change, is in itself
salutary and Christian, how far it needs to be supplemented and
elevated by that which follows and closes the verse. [203]
I.
There can be no doubt, then, that up to a certain point this conviction
is a necessary element of Christian thought, feeling, and character;
that it is at least among the preliminaries of a saving reception of
Christ.
There is in the great majority of the world a surprising and almost
incredible levity. There is a disposition to believe in the permanency
of that which we have known to continue long, and which has become
habitual. There is a tale of a man who was resolved to keep from his
children the knowledge of death. He was the Governor of a colony, and
had lost in succession his wife and many children. Two only, mere
infants, were left. He withdrew to a beautiful and secluded island, and
tried to barricade his daughters from the fatal knowledge which, when
once acquired, darkens the spirit with anticipation. In the
ocean-island death was to be a forbidden word. If met with in the pages
of a book, and questions were asked, no answer was to be given. If some
one expired, the body was to be removed, and the children were to be
told that the departed had gone to another country. It does not need
much imagination to feel sure that the secret could not be kept; that
some fish lying on the coral reef, or some bright bird killed in the
tropic forest, gave the little ones the hint of a something that
touched the splendour of the sunset with a strange presentiment; that
some hour came when, as to the rest of us, so to them, the mute
presence would insist upon being made known. Ours is a stranger mode of
dealing with ourselves than was the father's way of dealing with his
children. We tacitly resolve to play a game of make-believe with
ourselves, to forget that which cannot be forgotten, to remove to an
incalculable distance that which is inexorably near. And the fear of
death with us does not come from the nerves, but from the will. Death
ushers us into the presence of God. Those of whom we speak hate and
fear death because they fear God, and hate His presence. Now it is
necessary for such persons as these to be awakened from their illusion.
That which is supremely important for them is to realise that "the
world" is indeed "drifting by;" that there is an emptiness in all that
is created, a vanity in all that is not eternal; that time is short,
eternity long. They must be brought to see that with the world, the
"lust thereof" (the concupiscence, the lust of it, which has the world
for its object, which belongs to it, and which the world stimulates)
passes by also. The world, which is the object of the desire, is a
phantom and a shadow; the desire itself must be therefore the phantom
of a phantom and the shadow of a shadow.
This conviction has a thousand times over led human souls to the one
true abiding centre of eternal reality. It has come in a thousand ways.
It has been said that one heard the fifth chapter of Genesis read, with
those words eight times repeated over the close of each record of
longevity, like the strokes of a funeral bell, "and he died;" and that
the impression never left him, until he planted his foot upon the rock
over the tide of the changing years. Sometimes this conviction is
produced by the death of friends--sometimes by the slow discipline of
life--sometimes no doubt it may be begun, sometimes deepened, by the
preacher's voice upon the watch-night, by the effective ritualism of
the tolling bell, of the silent prayer, of the well-selected hymn. And
it is right that the world's dancing in, or drinking in, the New Year,
should be a hint to Christians to pray it in. This is one of the happy
plagiarisms which the Church has made from the world. The heart feels
as it never did before the truth of St. John's sad, calm, oracular
survey of existence. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof."
II.
But we have not sounded the depth of the truth--certainly we have not
exhausted St. John's meaning--until we have asked something more. Is
this conviction alone always a herald of salvation? Is it always, taken
by itself, even salutary? Can it never be exaggerated, and become the
parent of evils almost greater than those which it supersedes?
We are led by careful study of the Bible to conclude that this
sentiment of the flux of things is capable of exaggeration. For there
is one important principle which arises from a comparison of the Old
Testament with the New in this matter.
It is to be noticed that the Old Testament has indefinitely more which
corresponds to the first proposition of the text, without the
qualification which follows it, than we can find in the New.
The patriarch Job's experience echoes in our ears. "Man that is born of
a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh
up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and
never continueth in one stay." [204] The Funeral Psalms make their
melancholy chant. "Behold, Thou hast made my days as it were a span
long.... Verily every man living is altogether vanity. For man walketh
in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain.... O spare me a
little that I may smile again." [205] Or we read the words of Moses,
the man of God, in that ancient psalm of his, that hymn of time and of
eternity. All that human speech can say is summed up in four words, the
truest, the deepest, the saddest and the most expressive, that ever
fell from any mortal pen. "We bring our years to an end, as a sigh."
[206] Each life is a sigh between two eternities!
Our point is, that in the New Testament there is greatly less of this
element--greatly less of this pathetic moralising upon the vanity and
fragility of human life, of which we have only cited a few
examples--and that what there is lies in a different atmosphere, with
sunnier and more cheerful surroundings. Indeed, in the whole compass of
the New Testament there is perhaps but one passage which is set quite
in the same key with our familiar declamations upon the uncertainty and
shortness of human life--where St. James desires Christians ever to
remember in all their projects to make deduction for the will of God,
"not knowing what shall be on the morrow." [207] In the New Testament
the voice, which wails for a second about the changefulness and misery,
is lost in the triumphant music by which it is encompassed. If earthly
goods are depreciated, it is not merely because "the load of them
troubles, the love of them taints, the loss of them tortures;" [208] it
is because better things are ready. There is no lamentation over the
change, no clinging to the dead past. The tone is rather one of joyful
invitation. "Your raft is going to pieces in the troubled sea of time;
step into a gallant ship. The volcanic isle on which you stand is
undermined by silent fires; we can promise to bring you with us to a
shore of safety where you shall be compassed about with songs of
deliverance."
It is no doubt true to urge that this style of thought and language is
partly to be ascribed to a desire that the attention of Christians
should be fixed on the return of their Lord, rather than upon their own
death. But, if we believe Scripture to have been written under Divine
guidance, the history of religion may supply us with good grounds for
the absence of all exaggeration from its pages in speaking of the
misery of life and the transitoriness of the world.
The largest religious experiment in the world, the history of a
religion which at one time numerically exceeded Christendom, is a
gigantic proof that it is not safe to allow unlimited licence to
melancholy speculation. The true symbol for humanity is not a skull and
an hour glass.
Some two thousand five hundred years ago, towards the end of the
seventh century before Christ, at the foot of the mountains of Nepaul,
in the capital of a kingdom of Central India, an infant was born whom
the world will never forget. All gifts seemed to be showered on this
child. He was the son of a powerful king and heir to his throne. The
young Siddhârtha was of rare distinction, brave and beautiful, a
thinker and a hero, married to an amiable and fascinating princess. But
neither a great position nor domestic happiness could clear away the
cloud of melancholy which hung over Siddhârtha, even under that lovely
sky. His deep and meditative soul dwelt night and day upon the mystery
of existence. He came to the conclusion that the life of the creature
is incurably evil from three causes--from the very fact of existence,
from desire, and from ignorance. The things revealed by sense are evil.
None has that continuance and fixity which is the mark of Law, and the
attainment of which is the condition of happiness. At last his
resolution to leave all his splendour and become an ascetic was
irrevocably fixed. One splendid morning the prince drove to a glorious
garden. On his road he met a repulsive old man, wrinkled, toothless,
bent. Another day, a wretched being wasted with fever crossed his path.
Yet a third excursion--and a funeral passes along the road with a
corpse on an open bier, and friends wailing as they go. His favourite
attendant is obliged in each case to confess that these evils are not
exceptional--that old age, sickness, and death, are the fatal
conditions of conscious existence for all the sons of men. Then the
Prince Royal takes his first step towards becoming the deliverer of
humanity. He cries--"woe, woe to the youth which old age must destroy,
to the health which sickness must undermine, to the life which has so
few days and is so full of evil." Hasty readers are apt to judge that
the Prince was on the same track with the Patriarch of Idumea, and with
Moses the man of God in the desert--nay, with St. John, when he writes
from Ephesus that "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof."
It may be well to reconsider this; to see what contradictory principle
lies under utterances which have so much superficial resemblance.
Siddhârtha became known as the Bouddha, the august founder of a great
and ancient religion. That religion has of later years been favourably
compared with Christianity--yet what are its necessary results, as
drawn out for us by those who have studied it most deeply? Scepticism,
fanatic hatred of life, incurable sadness in a world fearfully
misunderstood; rejection of the personality of man, of God, of the
reality of Nature. Strange enigma! The Bouddha sought to win
annihilation by good works; everlasting non-being by a life of purity,
of alms, of renunciation, of austerity. The prize of his high calling
was not everlasting life, but everlasting death; for what else is
impersonality, unconsciousness, absorption into the universe, but the
negation of human existence? The acceptance of the principles of
Bouddhism is simply a sentence of death intellectually, morally,
spiritually, almost physically, passed upon the race which submits to
the melancholy bondage of its creed of desolation. It is the opium
drunkenness of the spiritual world without the dreams that are its
temporary consolation. It is enervating without being soft, and
contemplative without being profound. It is a religion which is
spiritual without recognising the soul, virtuous without the conception
of duty, moral without the admission of liberty, charitable without
love. It surveys a world without nature, and a universe without God.
[209] The human soul under its influence is not so much drunken as
asphyxiated by a monotonous unbalanced perpetual repetition of one half
of the truth--"the world passeth away, and the lust thereof."
For let us carefully note that St. John adds a qualification which
preserves the balance of truth. Over against the dreary contemplation
of the perpetual flux of things, he sets a constant course of
doing--over against the world, God in His deepest, truest personality,
"the will of God"--over against the fact of our having a short time to
live, and being full of misery, an everlasting fixity, "he abideth for
ever"--(so well brought out by the old gloss which slipped into the
Latin text, "even as God abideth for ever"). As the Lord had taught
before, so the disciple now teaches, of the rocklike solidity, of the
permanent abiding, under and over him who "doeth." Of the devotee who
became in his turn the Bouddha, Çakhya-Mouni could not have said one
word of the close of our text. "He"--but human personality is lost in
the triumph of knowledge. "Doeth the will of God"--but God is ignored,
if not denied. [210] "Abideth for ever"--but that is precisely the
object of his aversion, the terror from which he wishes to be
emancipated at any price, by any self-denial.
It may be supposed that this strain of thought is of little practical
importance. It may be of use, indeed, in other lands to the missionary
who is brought into contact with forms of Bouddhism in China, India, or
Ceylon, but not to us in these countries. In truth it is not so. It is
about half a century ago since a great English theologian warned his
University that the central principle of Bouddhism was being spread far
and wide in Europe from Berlin. This propaganda is not confined to
philosophy. It is at work in literature generally, in poetry, in
novels, above all in those collections of "Pensées" which have become
so extensively popular. The unbelief of the last century advanced with
flashing epigrams and defiant songs. With Byron it softened at times
into a melancholy which was perhaps partly affected. But with Amiel,
and others of our own day, unbelief assumes a sweet and dirge-like
tone. The satanic mirth of the past unbelief is exchanged for a satanic
melancholy in the present. Many currents of thought run into our
hearts, and all are tinged with a darkness before unknown from new
substances in the soil which colours the waters. There is little fear
of our not hearing enough, great fear of our hearing too much, of the
proposition--"the world passeth away, and the lust thereof."
All this may possibly serve as some explanation for the fact that the
Christian Church, as such, has no fast for the last day of the year, no
festival for New Year's Day except one quite unconnected with the
lessons which may be drawn from the flight of time. The death of the
old year, the birth of the new year, have touching associations for us.
But the Church consecrates no death but that of Jesus and His martyrs,
no nativity but that of her Lord, and of one whose birth was directly
connected with His own--John the Baptist. [211] A cause of this has
been found in the fact that the day had become so deeply contaminated
by the abominations of the heathen Saturnalia that it was impossible in
the early Church to continue any very marked observation of it. This
may well be so; but it is worth considering whether there is not
another and deeper reason. Nothing that has now been said can be
supposed to militate against the observance of this time by Christians
in private, with solemn penitence for the transgressions of the past
year, and earnest prayer for that upon which we enter--nothing against
the edification of particular congregations by such services as those
most striking ones which are held in so many places. But some
explanation is supplied why the "Watch-night" is not recognised in the
calendar of the Church.
Let us take our verse together as a whole and we have something better
than moralising over the flight of time and the transitoriness of the
world; something better than vulgarising "vanity of vanities" by vapid
iteration.
It is hard to conceive a life in which death and evanescence have
nothing that enforces their recognition. Now the removal of one dear to
us, now a glance at the obituary with the name of some one of almost
the same age as ourselves, brings a sudden shadow over the sunniest
field. Yet surely it is not wholesome to encourage the perpetual
presence of the cloud. We might impose upon ourselves the penance of
being shut up all a winter's night with a corpse, go half crazy with
terror of that unearthly presence, and yet be no more spiritual after
all. [212] We must learn to look at death in a different way, with new
eyes. We all know how different dead faces are. Some speak to us merely
of material ugliness, of the sweep of "decay's effacing fingers." In
others a new idea seems to light up the face; there is the touch of a
superhuman irradiation, of a beauty from a hidden life. We feel that we
look on one who has seen Christ, and say--"we shall be like Him, for we
shall see Him as He is." These two kinds of faces answer to the two
different views of life.
Not the transitory, but the permanent; not the fleeting, but the
abiding; not death but life, is the conclusion of the whole matter. The
Christian life is not an initial spasm followed by a chronic dyspepsia.
What does St. John give us as the picture of it exemplified in a
believer? Daily, perpetual, constant doing the will of God. This is the
end far beyond--somewhat inconsistent with--obstinately morbid
meditation and surrounding ourselves with multiplied images of
mortality. Lying in a coffin half the night might not lead to that end;
nay, it might be a hindrance thereto. Beyond the grave, outside the
coffin, is the object at which we are to look. "The current of things
temporal," cries Augustine, "sweeps along. But like a tree over that
stream has risen our Lord Jesus Christ. He willed to plant Himself as
it were over the river. Are you whirled along by the current? Lay hold
of the wood. Does the love of the world roll you onward in its course?
Lay hold upon Christ. For you He became temporal that you might become
eternal. For He was so made temporal as to remain eternal. Join thy
heart to the eternity of God, and thou shalt be eternal with Him."
Those who have heard the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel describe the
desolation which settles upon the soul which surrenders itself to the
impression of the ritual. As the psalm proceeds, at the end of each
rhythmical pulsation of thought, each beat of the alternate wings of
the parallelism, a light upon the altar is extinguished. As the wail
grows sadder the darkness grows deeper. When all the lights are out and
the last echo of the strain dies away, there would be something
suitable for the penitent's mood in the words--"the world passeth away,
and the lust thereof." Upon the altar of the Christian heart there are
tapers at first unlighted, and before it a priest in black vestments.
But one by one the vestments are exchanged for others which are white;
one after another the lamps are lighted slowly and without noise, until
gradually, we know not how, the whole place is full of light. And ever
sweeter and clearer, calm and happy, with a triumph which is at first
repressed and reverential, but which increases as the light becomes
diffused, the words are heard strong and quiet--a plain-song now that
will swell into an anthem presently--"he that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever."
NOTES.
Ch. ii. 12-17.
Ver. 12, 13, 14. These verses cannot properly be divided so as to
embrace three departments of spiritual, answering to three departments
of natural, life. All believers are addressed authoritatively as
"children" in the faith, tenderly as "little children;" then subdivided
into two classes only, "fathers," and "young men." Confirmation is
justly found implied here.
Ver. 16. Hardy's comment is quaint, and interesting. "These three are
'all that is in the world;' they are the world's cursed trinity;
according to that of the poet,
Ambitiosus honos, et opes, et foeda voluptas;
Hæc tria pro trino numine mundus habet,
which wicked men adore and worship as deities; in which regard Lapide
opposeth them to the three persons in the blessed Trinity: the lust of
the eyes to the Father, who is liberal in communicating His essence to
the Son and the Spirit; the lust of the flesh to the Son, whose
generation is spiritual and eternal; the pride of life to the Holy
Ghost, who is the Spirit of humility. That golden calf, which, being
made, was set up and worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness, is
not unfitly made use of to represent these: the calf, which is a wanton
creature, an emblem of the lust of flesh; the gold of the calf,
referring to the lust of the eyes; and the exalting it, to the pride of
life. Oh, how do the most of men fall down before this golden calf
which the world erecteth."
In tracing the various senses of "the world" we have not dwelt
prominently upon the conception of the world as embodied in the Roman
Empire, and in the city of Rome as its seat--an empire standing over
against the Church as the Kingdom of God. The alazonia tou biou may be
projected outwardly, and set in a material framework in the gorgeous
description of the wealth and luxury of Rome in Apoc. xviii. 11-14. M.
Rénan finds in the Apocalypse the cry of horror of a witness who has
been at Rome, seen the martyrdom of brethren, and been himself near
death. (Apoc. i. 9, vi. 9, xiii. 10, xx. 4; cf. L'Antechrist, pp. 197,
199. Surely Apoc. xviii. 20 adds a strong testimony to the martyrdom of
Peter and Paul at Rome.) So early a witness as Tertullian gives the
story of St. John's having been plunged into the boiling oil without
injury to him before his exile at Patmos. (De Præscr. Hær., 36). The
Apocryphal 'Acta Iohannis' (known to Eusebius and to St. Augustine),
relates at length an interview at Rome between Domitian and St.
John--not without interest, in spite of some miraculous embellishment.
Acta. Apost. Apoc. Tischendorf, 266-271.
__________________________________________________________________
[203] paragetai. It has been said that this is not the real point; that
what St. John here describes is not the general attribute of the world
as transitory, but its condition at the moment when the Epistle was
written, in presence of the manifestation of "the kingdom of God, which
was daily shining forth." But surely the world can scarcely be so
completely identified with the temporary framework of the Roman Empire;
and the universality of the antithesis (ho de poion k.t.l.) and its
intensely individual form, lead us to take kosmos in that universal and
inclusive signification which alone is of abiding interest to every
age.
[204] Job xiv. 1, 2. Cf. x. 20-22.
[205] Such seems to be the meaning of 'vlynh (Ps. xxxix. 5).
[206] Ps. xc. 9.
[207] James iv. 13-17. The passage 1 Pet. i. 25 is taken from the
magnificent prophecy in which the fragility of all flesh, transitory as
the falling away of the flowers of grass into impalpable dust, is
contrasted with the eternity of the word of God. Isa. xl. 6, 7, LXX.
[208] "Possessa onerant, amata inquinant, amissa cruciant."--St.
Bernard.
[209] The view here taken of Bouddhism follows that of M. J. Barthelemy
St. Hilaire. Le Bouddha et sa Réligion. Prémière partie, chap. v., pp.
141-182.
[210] "These populations neither deny nor affirm God. They simply
ignore Him. To assert that they are atheists would be very much the
same thing as to assert that they are anti-Cartesians. As they are
neither for nor against Descartes, so they are neither for nor against
God. They are just children. A child is neither atheist nor deist. He
is nothing."--Voltaire, Dict. Phil., Art. Athêisme.
[211] It is noteworthy that in the collects in the English Prayer-Book,
and indeed in its public formularies generally (outside the Funeral
Service, and that for the Visitation of the Sick), there are but two
places in which the note of the "world passeth away" is very
prominently struck, viz., the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after
Easter, and one portion of the prayer for "The Church Militant." One of
the most wholesome and beautiful expressions of the salutary
convictions arising from Christian perception of this melancholy truth
is to be found in Dr. Johnson's "Prayer for the Last Day in the Year,"
as given in Mr. Stobart's Daily Services for Christian Households, pp.
99, 100.
[212] The old "Memento Mori" timepiece of Mary, Queen of Scots, is a
watch in the interior of a death's-head, which opens to disclose it.
Surely not a symbol likely to make any soul happier or better!
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION IV.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Paidia, eschate ora estin; kai kathos ekousate hoti ho antichristos
erchetai, kai nun antichristoi polloi gegonasin; hothen ginoskomen hoti
eschate hora estin. Ex hemon exelthan, all' ouk esan ex hemon. ei gar
ex hemon esan, memenekeisan an meth' hemon; all' hina phanerothosin
hoti ouk eisin pantes ex hemon. Kai humeis chrisma echete apo tou
agiou, kai oidate panta. ouk egrapsa humin, hoti ouk oidate ten
aletheian, all' hoti oidate auten, kai hoti pan pseudos ek tes
aletheias ouk estin. Tis estin ho pseustes, ei me ho arnoumenos hoti
Iesous ouk estin ho Christos? outos estin ho antichristos, ho
arnoumenos ton patera kai ton uion. pas ho arnoumenos ton uion, oude
ton patera echei. ho homologon ton uion kai ton patera echei. Humeis ho
ekousate ap' arches, en humin meneto. ean en humin meine ho ap' arches
ekousate, kai humeis en to uio kai en to patri meneite. kai aute estin
he epangelia, hen autos epengeilato hemin, ten zoen ten aionion. tauta
egrapsa humin peri ton planonton humas. Kai humeis to chrisma ho
elabate ap' autou, menei en humin, kai ou chreian echete hina tis
didaske humas; all' hos to autou chrisma didaskei humas peri panton,
kai alethes estin, kai ouk estin pseudos; kai kathos edidaxen humas,
meneite en auto. Kai nun, teknia, menete en auto; hina hotan
phanerothe, schomen parresian, kai me aischunthomen ap' autou, en te
parousia autou.
Filioli, novissima hora est: et sicut audistis quia antichristus venit,
nunc autem antichristi multi facti sunt, unde scimus quia novissima
hora est. Ex nobis prodierunt, sed non erant ex nobis, nam si fuissent
ex nobis, permansissent utique nobiscum; sed ut manifesti sint quoniam
non sunt omnes ex nobis. Sed vos unctionem habetis a Sancto, et nostis
omnia. Non scripsi vobis quasi ignorantibus veritatem, sed quasi
scientibus eam, et quoniam omne mendacium ex veritate non est. Quis est
mendax, nisi qui negat quoniam Iesus non est Christus? Hic est
antichristus, qui negat Patrem et Filium. Omnis qui negat Filium nec
Patrem habet: qui confitetur Filium, et Patrem habet. Vos quod audistis
ab initio, in vobis permaneat. Si in vobis permanserit quod ab initio
audistis, et vos in Filio et Patre manebitis. Et hæc est promissio quam
ipse pollicitus est vobis, vitam æternam. Hæc scripsi vobis de his qui
seducunt vos. Et vos unctionem quam accepistis ab eo, maneat in vobis;
et non necesse habetis ut aliquis doceat vos, sed sicut unctio eius
docet vos de omnibus, et verum est, et non est mendacium, et sicut
docuit vos manete in eo. Et nunc, filioli, manete in eo, ut cum
apparuerit habemus fiduciam, et non confundamur ab eo in adventu eius.
Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that
antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists; whereby we
know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not
of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued
with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they
were not all of us. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye
know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the
truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is
a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist,
that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the
same hath not the Father: [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the
Father also. Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from
the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall
remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.
And this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.
These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.
But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye
need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you
of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught
you, ye shall abide in Him. And now, little children, abide in Him;
that, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed
before Him at His coming.
Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist
cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know
that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of
us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but
they went out, that they might be made manifest how that they are not
of us. And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all
things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but
because ye know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar
but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist,
even he that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son,
the same hath not the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath the
Father also. As for you, let that abide in you which ye heard from the
beginning. If that which ye heard from the beginning abide in you, ye
also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise
which He promised us, even the life eternal. These things have I
written unto you concerning them that would lead you astray. And as for
you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye need
not that any one teach you; but as His anointing teacheth you
concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it
taught you, ye abide in Him. And now, my little children, abide in Him;
that, if He shall be manifested, we may have boldness, and not be
ashamed before Him at His coming.
Little children, it is a last hour; and as ye heard that antichrist
cometh, so now many antichrists are in existence; whereby we know that
it is a last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for
if they had been of us they would have continued with us: but that they
might be made manifest how that all are not of us, they all went out.
But ye have unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have
not written unto you this--"ye know not the truth"--but this--"ye know
it," and this--"every lie is not from the truth." Who is the liar but
he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? The antichrist is this, he
that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son the same
hath not the Father; he that confesseth the Son also hath the Father.
As for you--that which ye heard from the beginning let it abide in you.
If that abide in you which from the beginning ye heard, ye also shall
abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise which He
promised us, the life, the eternal life. These things have I written
unto you concerning those that would mislead you. And as for you--the
anointing which ye received from Him abideth in you, and ye have no
need that any be teaching you: but as His unction is teaching you
continually concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and
as it taught you, so shall ye abide in Him. And now, children, abide in
Him, that if He shall be manifested we may have boldness and not shrink
in shame from Him in His coming.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE VIII.
KNOWING ALL THINGS.
"But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all
things."--1 John ii. 20.
There is little of the form of logical argument to which Western
readers are habituated in the writings of St. John, steeped as his mind
was in Hebraic influences. The inferential "therefore" is not to be
found in this Epistle. [213] Yet the diligent reader or expositor finds
it more difficult to detach any single sentence, without loss to the
general meaning, than in any other writing of the New Testament. The
sentence may look almost as if its letters were graven brief and large
upon a block of marble, and stood out in oracular isolation--but upon
reverent study it will be found that the seemingly lapidary inscription
is one of a series with each of which it is indissolubly
connected--sometimes limited, sometimes enlarged, always coloured and
influenced by that which precedes and follows.
It is peculiarly needful to bear this observation in mind in
considering fully the almost startling principle stated in the verse
which is prefixed to this discourse. A kind of spiritual omniscience
appears to be attributed to believers. Catechisms, confessions, creeds,
teachers, preachers, seem to be superseded by a stroke of the Apostle's
pen, by what we are half tempted to consider as a magnificent
exaggeration. The text sounds as if it outstripped even the fulfilment
of the promise of the new covenant contained in Jeremiah's
prophecy--"they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know Me,
from the least of them unto the greatest of them." [214]
The passages just before and after St. John's splendid annunciation
[215] in our text are occupied with the subject of Antichrist, here
first mentioned in Scripture. In this section of our Epistle Antichrist
is (1) revealed, and (2) refuted.
(1) Antichrist is revealed by the very crisis which the Church was then
traversing. From this especially, from the transitory character of a
world drifting by them in unceasing mutation, the Apostle is led to
consider this as one of those crisis-hours of the Church's history,
each of which may be the last hour, and which is assuredly--in the
language of primitive Christianity--a last hour. The Apostle therefore
exclaims with fatherly affection--"Little children, it is a last hour."
[216]
Deep in the heart of the Apostolic Church, because it came from those
who had received it from Christ, there was one awful anticipation. St.
John in this passage gives it a name. He remembers Who had told the
Jews that "if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive."
[217] He can announce to them that "as ye have heard this Antichrist
cometh, even so now" (precisely as ye have heard) "many antichrists
have come into existence and are around you, whereby we know that it is
a last hour." The name Antichrist occurs only in these Epistles, and
seems purposely intended to denote both one who occupies the place of
Christ, and one who is against Christ. In "the Antichrist" the
antichristian principle is personally concentrated. The conception of
representative-men is one which has become familiar to modern students
of the philosophy of history. Such representative-men, at once the
products of the past, moulders of the present, and creative of the
future, sum up in themselves tendencies and principles good and evil,
and project them in a form equally compacted and intensified into the
coming generations. Shadows and anticipations of Antichrist the holiest
of the Church's sons have sometimes seen, even in the high places of
the Church. But it is evident that as yet the Antichrist has not come.
For wherever St. John mentions this fearful impersonation of evil, he
connects the manifestation of his influence with absolute denial of the
true Manhood, of the Messiahship, of the everlasting sonship of Jesus,
of the Father, Who is His and our Father. [218] In negation of the
Personality of God, in the substitution of a glittering but unreal idea
of human goodness and active philanthropy for the historical Christ, we
of this age may not improbably hear his advancing footsteps, and
foresee the advent of a day when antichristianity shall find its great
representative-man.
(2) Antichrist is also refuted by a principle common to the life of
Christians and by its result.
The principle by which he is refuted is a gift of insight lodged in the
Church at large, and partaken of by all faithful souls.
A hint of a solemn crisis had been conveyed to the Christians of Asia
Minor by secessions from the great Christian community. "They went out
from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they
would have continued with us (which they did not, but went out) that
they might be made manifest that not all are of us." [219] Not only
this. "Yea further, ye yourselves have a hallowing oil from Him who is
hallowed, a chrism from the Christ, an unction from the Holy One, even
from the Son of God." Chrism (as we are reminded by the most accurate
of scholars) is always the material with which anointing is performed,
never the act of anointing; it points to the unction of prophets,
priests and kings under the Old Testament, in whose sacrifices and
mystic language oil symbolises the Holy Spirit as the spirit of joy and
freedom. Quite possibly there may be some allusion to a literal use of
oil in Baptism and Confirmation, which began at a very early period;
[220] though it is equally possible that the material may have arisen
from the spiritual, and not in the reverse order. But beyond all
question the real predominant reference is to the Holy Ghost. In the
chrism here mentioned there is a feature characteristic of St. John's
style. For there is first a faint prelusive note which (as we find in
several other important subjects [221] ) is faintly struck and seems to
die away, but is afterwards taken up, and more fully brought out. The
full distinct mention of the Holy Spirit comes like a burst of the
music of the "Veni Creator," carrying on the fainter prelude when it
might seem to have been almost lost. The first reverential, almost
timid hint, is succeeded by another, brief but significant--almost
dogmatically expressive of the relation of the Holy Spirit to Christ as
His Chrism, "the Chrism of Him." [222] We shall presently have a direct
mention of the Holy Ghost. "Hereby we know that He abideth in us, from
the Spirit which He gave us." [223]
Antichrist is refuted by a result of this great principle of the life
of the Holy Spirit in the living Church. "Ye have" chrism from the
Christ; Antichrist shall not lay his unhallowing disanointing hand upon
you. As a result of this, "ye know all things." [224]
How are we to understand this startling expression?
If we receive any teachers as messengers commissioned by God, it is
evident that their message must be communicated to us through the
medium of human language. They come to us with minds that have been in
contact with a Mind of infinite knowledge, and deliver utterances of
universal import. They are therefore under an obligation to use
language which is capable of being misunderstood by some persons. Our
Lord and His Apostles so spoke at times. Two very different classes of
men constantly misinterpret words like those of our text. The
rationalist does so with a sinister smile; the fanatic with a cry of
hysterical triumph. The first may point his epigram with effective
reference to the exaggerated promise which is belied by the ignorance
of so many ardent believers; the second may advance his absurd claim to
personal infallibility in all things spiritual. Yet an Apostle calmly
says--"ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things."
This, however, is but another asterisk directing the eye to the
Master's promise in the Gospel, which is at once the warrant and the
explanation of the utterance here. "The Holy Ghost, whom the Father
will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." [225] The
express limitation of the Saviour's promise is the implied limitation
of St. John's statement. "The Holy Ghost has been sent, according to
this unfailing pledge. He teaches you (and, if He teaches, you know)
all things which Christ has said, as far as their substance is written
down in a true record--all things of the new creation spoken by our
Lord, preserved by the help of the Spirit in the memories of chosen
witnesses with unfading freshness, by the same Spirit unfolded and
interpreted to you."
We should observe in what spirit and to whom St. John speaks.
He does not speak in the strain which would be adopted by a missionary
in addressing men lately brought out of heathenism into the fold of
Christ. He does not like a modern preacher or tract-writer at once
divide his observations into two parts, one for the converted, one for
the unconverted; all are his "dear ones" as beloved, his "sons" as
brought into close spiritual relationship with himself. He classes them
simply as young and old, with their respective graces of strength and
knowledge. All are looked upon as "abiding"; almost the one exhortation
is to abide unto the end in a condition upon which all have already
entered, and in which some have long continued. We feel throughout the
calmness and assurance of a spiritual teacher writing to Christian men
who had either been born in the atmosphere of Christian tradition, or
had lived in it for many years. They are again and again appealed to on
the ground of a common Christian confidence--"we know." They have all
the articles of the Christian creed, the great inheritance of a
faithful summary of the words and works of Christ. The Gospel which
Paul at first preached in Asia Minor was the starting point of the
truth which remained among them, illustrated, expanded, applied, but
absolutely unaltered. [226] What the Christians whom St. John has in
view really want is the revival of familiar truths, not the impartation
of new. No spiritual voyage or discovery is needed; they have only to
explore well-known regions. The memory and the affections must be
stimulated. The truths which have become "cramped and bed-ridden" in
the dormitory of the soul must acquire elasticity from exercise. The
accumulation of ashes must be blown away, and the spark of fire beneath
fanned into flame. This capacity of revival, of expansion, of quickened
life, of developed truth, is in the unction common to the faithful, in
the latent possibilities of the new birth. The same verse to which we
have before referred as the best interpreter of this should be
consulted again. [227] There is an instructive distinction between the
tenses--"as His unction is teaching"--"as it taught you." [228] The
teaching was once for all, the creed definite and fixed, the body of
truth a sum-total looked upon as one. "The unction taught." Once for
all the Holy Spirit made known the Incarnation and stamped the recorded
words of Christ with His seal. But there are depths of thought about
His person which need to be reverently explored. There is an energy in
His work which was not exhausted in the few years of its doing, and
which is not imprisoned within the brief chronicle in which it is
written. There is a spirit and a life in His words. In one aspect they
have the strength of the tornado, which advances in a narrow line; but
every foot of the column, as if armed with a tooth of steel, grinds and
cuts into pieces all which resists it. Those words have also depths of
tenderness, depths of wisdom, into which eighteen centuries have looked
down and never yet seen the last of their meaning. Advancing time does
but broaden the interpretation of the wisdom and the sympathy of those
words. Applications of their significance are being discovered by
Christian souls in forms as new and manifold as the claims of human
need. The Church collectively is like one sanctified mind meditating
incessantly upon the Incarnation; attaining more and more to an
understanding of that character as it widens in a circle of glory round
the form of its historical manifestation--considering how those words
may be applied not only to self but to humanity. The new wants of each
successive generation bring new help out of that inexhaustible store.
The Church may have "decided opinions"; but she has not the "deep
slumber" which is said to accompany them. How can she be fast asleep
who is ever learning from a teacher Who is always supplying her with
fresh and varied lessons? The Church must be ever learning, because the
anointing which "taught" once for all is also ever "teaching."
This profound saying is therefore chiefly true of Christians as a
whole. Yet each individual believer may surely have a part in it.
"There is a teacher in the heart who has also a chair in heaven." "The
Holy Spirit who dwells in the justified soul," says a pious writer, "is
a great director." May we not add that He is a great catechist? In
difficulties, whether worldly, intellectual, or spiritual, thousands
for a time helpless and ignorant, in presence of difficulties through
which they could not make their way, have found with surprise how true
in the sequel our text has become to them.
For we all know how different things, persons, truths, ideas may
become, as they are seen at different times and in different lights, as
they are seen in relation to God and truth or outside that relation.
The bread in Holy Communion is unchanged in substance; but some new and
glorious relation is superadded to it. It is devoted by its
consecration to the noblest use manward and Godward, so that St. Paul
speaks of it with hushed reverence as "The Body." [229] It seems to be
a part of the same law that some one--once perhaps frivolous,
common-place, sinful--is taken into the hand of the great High Priest,
broken with sorrow and penitence, and blessed; and thereafter he is at
once personally the same, and yet another higher and better by that
awful consecration to another use. So again with some truth of creed or
catechism which we have fallen into the fallacy of supposing that we
know because it is familiar. It may be a truth that is sweet or one
that is tremendous. It awaits its consecration, its blessing, its
transformation into a something which in itself is the same yet which
is other to us. That is to say, the familiar truth is old, in itself,
in substance and expression. It needs no other, and can have no better
formula. To change the formula would be to alter the truth; but to us
it is taught newly with a fuller and nobler exposition by the unction
which is "ever teaching," whereby we "know all things."
NOTES.
Ch. ii. 18-28.
Ver. 18. A last hour,] eschate hora. "Hour" is used in all St. John's
writings of a definite point of time, which is also providentially
fixed. (Cf. John xvii. 1; Apoc. iii. 3.) In something of this elevated
signification Shakespeare appears to employ the word in The Tempest in
relation to his own life:
Prospero. "How's the day?"
Ariel. "On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,
You said our work should cease."
Each decade of years is here looked upon as a providentially fixed
duration of time. The poet intended to retire from the work of
imaginative poetry when his life should draw on towards sixty years of
age.
Ver. 19. "It doth not appear, nor is it probable, that these
antichrists, when gone out from the Apostles, did still pretend to the
orthodox faith; and therefore no need for the Apostle to make any
provision against it. Nay, it is plainly intimated by the following
discourse, that these antichrists being gone forth, did set themselves
expressly, directly, against the orthodox, denying that Jesus, whom
they did profess, to be the Christ; and therefore the design of this
clause is most rationally conceived to be the prevention of that
scandal which their horrid apostasy might give to weak Christians; nor
could anything more effectually prevent or remove it, than to let them
know that these antichristian apostates were never true stars in the
firmament of the Church, but only blazing comets, as their falling away
did evidently demonstrate."--Dean Hardy, 309.
Ver. 19 To use the words of a once famous controversial divine, they
may be said to be "of the Church presumptively in their own, and
others' opinion, but not really." (Spalat., lib. vii., 10, cf. on the
whole subject, St. Aug. Lib. de Bono. Persev., viii.)
"Let no one count that the good can go forth from the Church; the wind
cannot carry away the wheat, nor the storm overthrow the solidly rooted
tree. The light chaff is tossed by the wind, the weak trees go down
before the blast. 'They went out from us, but they were not of
us.'"--S. Cyp., B. de Simplic.
Ver. 24. Ye shall abide in the Son, and in the Father.] "If it be asked
why the Son is put before the Father, the answer is well returned.
Because the Apostle had just before inveighed against those who, though
they pretended to acknowledge the Father, yet deny the Son. Though
withal there may besides be a double reason assigned: the one to
insinuate that the Son is not less than the Father, but that they are
equal in essence and dignity. Upon this account most probable it is
that the apostolical benediction beginneth with 'The grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ,' and then followeth 'the love of God the Father.' The
other, because, as Beda well glosseth, No man cometh in, or continueth
in, the Father but by the Son, who saith of Himself, 'I am the way, the
truth, and the life.'
"To draw it up, lo, here Eximia laus doctrinæ, an high commendation of
evangelical doctrine, that it leads up to Christ, and by Him to the
Father. The water riseth as high as the spring from whence it floweth.
No wonder if the gospel, which cometh from God through Christ, lead us
back again through Christ to God; and as by hearing and believing this
doctrine we are united to, so by adhering to, and persevering in it, we
continue in, the Son and the Father. Suitable to this is that promise
of our blessed Saviour, John xiv. 23, 'If any man love Me he will keep
My word, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make
our abode with him.'"--Dean Hardy, 350.
Ver. 27. The connection of the whole section is well traced by the old
divine, whose commentary closes a little below.
"If you compare these three with the eight foregoing verses, you shall
find them to be a summary repetition of what is there more largely
delivered. There are three hinges upon which the precedent discourse
turneth, namely, the peril of antichristian doctrine, the benefit of
the Spirit's unction, the duty of perseverance in the Christian faith;
and these three are inculcated in these verses. Indeed, where the
danger is very great, the admonition cannot be too frequent. When the
benefit is of singular advantage, it would be often considered, and a
duty which must be performed cannot be too much pressed. No wonder if
St. John proposed them in this gemination to our second thoughts. And
yet it is not a naked repetition neither, but such as hath a variation
and amplification in every particular. The duty is reinforced at the
eight-and-twentieth verse, but in another phrase, of 'abiding in
Christ,' and with a new motive, drawn from the second coming of Christ.
The benefit is reiterated, and much amplified, in the
seven-and-twentieth verse, as to its excellency and energy. Finally,
the danger is repeated, but with another description of those by whom
they were in danger; whilst as before he had called them antichrists
for their enmity against Christ, so here, for their malignity against
Christians, he calleth them seducers: 'These things have I written to
you concerning them that seduce you,' etc."--Dean Hardy, 357.
__________________________________________________________________
[213] The oun in ver. 24 is not recognised by the R. V. nor adopted in
Professor Westcott's text. One uncial (A), however, inserts it in 1
John iv. 19. It occurs in 3 John 8. This inferential particle is found
with unusual frequency in St. John's Gospel. It does not seem
satisfactory to account for this by calling it "one of the beginnings
of modern Greek." (B. de Xivrey.) By St. John as an historian, the
frequent therefore is the spontaneous recognition of a Divine logic of
events; of the necessary yet natural sequence of every incident in the
life of the "Word made Flesh." The oun expresses something more than
continuity of narrative. It indicates a connection of events so
interlinked that each springs from, and is joined with, the preceding,
as if it were a conclusion which followed from the premiss of the
Divine argument. Now a mind which views history in this light is just
the mind which will be dogmatic in theology. The inspired dogmatic
theologian will necessarily write in a style different from that of the
theologian of the Schools. The style of the former will be oracular;
that of the latter will be scholastic, i.e., inferential, a
concatenation of syllogisms. The syllogistic oun is then naturally
absent from St. John's Epistles. The one undoubted exception is 3 John
8, where a practical inference is drawn from an historical statement in
ver. 7. The writer may be allowed to refer to The Speaker's Commentary,
iv., 381.
[214] Jer. xxxi. 34.
[215] Vers. 18, 22.
[216] The last hour is not a date arbitrarily chosen and written down
as a man might mark a day for an engagement in a calendar. It is
determined by history--by the sum-total of the product of the actions
of men who are not the slaves of fatality, who possess free-will, and
are not forced to act in a particular way. It is supposed to derogate
from the Divine mission of the Apostles if we admit that they might be
mistaken as to the chronology of the closing hour of time. But to know
that supreme instant would involve a knowledge of the whole plan of God
and the whole predetermining motives in the appointment of that day,
i.e., it would constructively involve omniscience. Cf. Mark xiii. 32,
and our Lord's profound saying, Acts i. 7.
[217] John v. 43.
[218] 1 John ii. 22, iv. 2, 3; 2 John 7-9.
[219] Ver. 19.
[220] Bingham's Antiquities, i., 462-524, 565.
[221] For other instances of this characteristic, see a subject
introduced ii. 29, expanded iii. 9--another subject introduced iii. 21,
expanded v. 14.
[222] to autou chrisma, ver. 27, not to auto ("the same anointing," A.
V.) "This most unusual order throws a strong emphasis on the pronoun."
(Prof. Westcott.) The writer thankfully quotes this as it seems to him
to bring out the dogmatic significance of the word, emphasised as it is
by this unusual order--the chrism, the Spirit of Him.
[223] 1 John iii. 24.
[224] The reading of the A. V. is received into Tischendorf's text and
adopted by the R. V. Another reading omits kai and substitutes pantes
for panta so that the passage would run thus, "Ye have an unction from
the Holy One. Ye all know (I have not written unto you because ye know
not) the truth." As far as the difficulty of panta is concerned,
nothing is gained by the change, as the statement recurs in a slightly
varied form in ver. 27.
[225] John xiv. 26.
[226] "Let that abide in you which ye heard from the beginning," 1 John
ii. 24. Cf. "Testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye
stand," 1 Pet. v. 12. "Even as our beloved brother Paul has written
unto you," 2 Pet. iii. 15. St. Paul has thus the attestation of St.
John as well as of St. Peter.
[227] Ver. 27
[228] didaskei--edidaxen.
[229] 1 Cor. xi. 29.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION V.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
ean eidete hoti dikaios estin, ginoskete hoti pas ho poion ten
dikaiosunen ex autou gegennetai. Idete potapen agapen dedoken hemin ho
pater, hina tekna Theou klethomen, kai esmen. dia touto ho kosmos ou
ginoskei hemas, hoti ouk egno auton. Agapetoi, nun tekna Theou esmen,
kai oupo ephanerothe ti esometha; oidamen hoti ean phanerothe homoioi
autu esometha, hoti opsometha auton kathos estin. kai pas ho echon ten
elpida tauten ep' autu agnizei eauton kathos ekeinos agnos estin. Pas
ho poion ten hamartian kai ten anomian poiei; kai he amartia estin he
anomia. kai oidate hoti ekeinos ephanerothe hina tas hamartias are, kai
hamartia en auto ouk estin. pas ho en auto menon ouch hamartanei; pas
ho hamartanon ouch heoraken auton oude egnoken auton. Paidia, medeis
planato humas; ho poion ten dikaiosunen dikaios estin, kathos ekeinos
dikaios estin. ho poion ten hamartian ek tou diabolou estin, hoti ap'
arches ho diabolos hamartanei. eis touto ephanerothe ho uios tou Theou,
hina luse ta erga tou diabolou. pas ho gegennemenos ek tou Theou
hamartian ou poiei, hoti sperma autou en auto menei; kai ou dunatai
hamartanein, hoti ek tou Theou gegennetai.
Si scitis quoniam iustus est, scitote quoniam omnis qui facit iustitiam
ex ipso natus est. Videte qualem caritatem dedit nobis Pater ut filii
Dei nominemur et simus. Propter hoc mundus non novit nos, quia non
novit eum. Carissimi, nunc filii Dei sumus et nondum apparuit quid
erimus. Scimus quoniam cum apparuerit similes ei erimus, quoniam
videbimus eum sicuti est. Et omnis qui habet spem hanc in eo
sanctificat se, sicut et ille sanctus est. Omnis qui facit peccatum et
iniquitatem facit, et peccatum est iniquitas. Et scitis quoniam ille
apparuit ut peccata tolerit, et peccatum in eo non est. Omnis qui in eo
manet non peccat, et omnis qui peccat non videt eum nec cognovit eum.
Filioli, nemo vos seducat. Qui facit iustitiam, iustus est, sicut et
ille iustus est: qui facit peccatum, ex diabolo est quoniam ab initio
diabolus peccat. In hoc apparuit Filius Dei, ut dissolvat opera
diaboli. Omnis qui natus est ex Deo peccatum non facit, quoniam semen
ipsius in eo manet, et non potest peccare, quoniam ex Deo natus est.
If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth
righteousness is born of Him. Behold, what manner of love the Father
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:
therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall
be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for
we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him
purifieth himself, even as He is pure. Whosoever committeth sin
transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is
no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath
not seen Him, neither known Him. Little children, let no man deceive
you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the
beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He
might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not
commit sin: for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because
he is born of God.
If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one also that doeth
righteousness is begotten of Him. Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God:
and such we are. For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it
knew Him not. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet
made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if He shall be
manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is.
And every one that hath this hope set on Him purifieth himself, even as
He is pure. Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness: and sin is
lawlessness. And ye know that He was manifested to take away sins; and
in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever
sinneth hath not seen Him, neither knoweth Him. My little children, let
no man lead you astray: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even
as He is righteous; he that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil
sinneth from the beginning. To this end was the Son of God manifested,
that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is begotten of
God doeth no sin, because His seed abideth in him; and he cannot sin,
because he is begotten of God.
If ye know that He is righteous, ye are aware that every one who is
doing righteousness is born of Him. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called children of
God;--and we are. Because of this the world knoweth us because it knew
not Him. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it never yet was
manifested what we shall be; but we know that if it shall be manifested
we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone that
hath this hope fixed on Him is ever purifying himself even as He is
pure. Every one that is doing sin, is also doing lawlessness; and,
indeed, sin is lawlessness. And ye know that He was manifested that He
should take away sins; and sin in Him is not. Whosoever abideth in Him
is not sinning; every one that is sinning hath not seen Him neither
hath known Him. Little children, let no man mislead you; he that is
doing righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous: he that is
doing sin is of the devil, because the devil is continually sinning
from the beginning. Unto this end the Son of God was manifested that He
might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God is not
doing sin for his seed abideth in Him, and he is not able to be
sinning, because he is born of God.
NOTES.
Ch. ii. 29, iii. 9.
III. ver. 3. "Hope fixed in Him" or "on Him."] The English reader
should note the capital letter; not hope in our hearts, but hope
unfastened from self. Epi soi Kurie elpisa, is the LXX. translation of
Psalm xxx. 1.
Is ever purifying himself.] "See how he does not do away with freewill;
for he says purifies himself. Who purifies us but God? Yet God does not
purify you when you are unwilling; therefore in joining your will to
God you purify yourself." (St. Augustine in loc.)
We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.] "So then we are
about to see a certain sight, excelling all beauties of the earth; the
beauty of gold, silver, forest, fields--the beauty of sea and air, sun
and moon--the beauty of stars--the beauty of angels. Aye, excelling all
these, because all these are beautiful only for it. What, therefore,
shall we be when we shall see all these? What is promised? We shall be
like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. The tongue hath spoken as it
could; let the rest be thought over by the heart" (St. Augustine in
loc.). Cf. 2 Cor. iii. 18. "As the whole body, face, above all eyes of
those who look towards the sun are sunnied" (insolantur).--Bengel.
Ver. 3. The ample stores of English divinity contain two sermons, one
excellent, one beautiful, upon this verse. The first is by Paley; it is
founded upon the leading thought, which he expresses with his usual
manly common sense. "There are a class of Christians to whom the
admonition of the text is peculiarly necessary. Finding it an easier
thing to do good than to expel sins which cleave to their hearts, their
affections, or their imaginations; they set their endeavours more
towards beneficence than purity. Doing good is not the whole of our
duty, nor the most difficult part of it. In particular it is not that
part of it which is insisted upon in our text." (Paley, Sermon XLIII.)
But the second sermon is perhaps the finest which ever came from the
pen of South, and he throws into it the full power of his heart and
intellect. The bare analysis is this:--
Is it indeed possible for a man to "purify himself"? There is a twofold
work of purification. (1) The infusing of the habit of purity into the
soul (regeneration or conversion). In this respect, no man can purify
himself. (2) The other work of purification is exercising that habit or
grace of purity. "God who made, and since new made us, without
ourselves, will not yet save us without ourselves." But again, how can
a man purify himself to that degree even as Christ is pure? Even as
denotes similitude of kind, not equality of degree. We are to purify
ourselves from the power of sin, and from the guilt of sin.
Purification from the power of sin consists in these things. (1) A
continually renewed repentance. Every day, every hour, may afford
matter for penitential sorrow. "A fountain of sin may well require a
fountain of sorrow." Converting repentance must be followed by daily
repentance. (2) Purifying ourselves consists in vigilant prevention of
acts of sin for the future. The means of effecting this are these. (a)
Opposing the very first risings of the heart to sin. "The bees may be
at work, and very busy within, though we see none of them fly abroad."
(b) Severe mortifying duties, such as watchings and fastings. (c)
Frequent and fervent prayer. "A praying heart naturally turns into a
purified heart." We are to purify ourselves, also, from the guilt of
sin. (1) Negatively. No duty or work within our power to perform can
take away the guilt of sin. Those who think so, understand neither "the
fiery strictness of the law, nor the spirituality of the Gospel." (2)
That which alone can purify us from the guilt of sin is applying the
virtue of the blood of Christ to the soul by renewed acts of faith. "It
is that alone that is able to wash away the deep stain, and to change
the hue of the spiritual Ethiopian." The last consideration is--how the
life of heaven and future glory has such a sovereign influence upon
this work? [This portion of the sermon falls far below the high
standard of the rest, and entirely loses the spirit of St. John's
thought.] South's Sermons. (Sermon 72, pp. 594-616.)
Ver. 6. That He might destroy the works of the devil.] The word here
used for Satan (diabolos) is found in John vi. 70, viii. 44, xiii. 2;
Apoc. ii. 10, xii. 9, 12, xx. 2, 10. One class of miracles is not
specifically recorded by St. John in his Gospel--the dispossession of
demoniacs. Probably this terrible affliction was less common in
Jerusalem than in Galilee. But the idea of possession is not foreign to
his mode of thought. John vi. 70, viii. 44, 48, x. 20, xiii. 27. He
here points to the dispossessions, so many of which are recorded by the
Synoptics.
III. ver. 9. His seed abideth in him.] Of these words only two
interpretations appear to be fairly possible. (1) The first would
understand "His seed" as "God's seed," the stock or family of His
children who are the true zrts 'lhym, seed of God (Mal. ii. 15). In
favour of this interpretation it may be urged: first, that "seed" in
the sense of "children, posterity, any one's entire stock and
filiation," in perhaps nearly two hundred passages of the LXX., is the
Greek rendering of many different Hebrew words. (See sperma in Num.
xxiv. 20; Deut. xxv. 1; Jer. l. 16; Gen. iii. 15; Isa. xiv. 20, 30, xv.
9; Num. xxiii. 10; 2 Chron. xxiv. 27.) Secondly, no inapt meaning is
given in the present text by so understanding the word. "He is unable
to go on in sin, for God's true stock and family (they who are true to
the majesty of their birth) abide in Him." (2) But a second meaning
appears preferable. "Seed" (sperma) would then be understood as a
metaphorical application of the grain in the vegetable world which
contains the possible germ of the future plant or tree; and would
signify the possibility, or germinal principle, given by the Holy
Spirit to the soul in regeneration. For this signification in our
passage there is a strong argument, which we have not seen adverted to,
in St. John's mode of language and of thought. "His seed abideth in
him" (sperma autou en auto menei) is really a quotation from the LXX.
(ou to sperma autou en auto--note the repetition of the words Gen. i.
11, 12). Now the Book of Genesis seems to have been the part of the Old
Testament which (with the Psalms) was chiefly in St. John's mind in the
Epistle. (Cf. 1 John i. 1, Gen. i. 1.--iii. 8, Gen. ii.--iii. 12, Gen.
iv. 8--iii. 15, Gen. xxvii. 41.) St. John, also, connects the new birth
of the sons of God, as did our Lord, with the birth of the creation,
whose first germ was "the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the
waters" (Gen. i. 2; John iii. 5). This parallel between the first
creation and the second, between creation and regeneration, has always
commended itself to profound Christian exegesis as being deeply set in
the mind of Scripture. Witness the magnificent lines.
Plebs ut sacra renascatur,
Per Hunc unda consecratur,
Cui super ferebatur
In rerum exordium.
Fons, origo pietatis,
Fons emundans a peccatis,
Fons de fonte Deitatis,
Fons sacrator fontium!
Adam of St. Victor, Seq. xx., Pentecoste.
It is instructive, to study the treatment of our Lord's words (John
iii. 5) by a commentator so little mystical as Professor Westcott. St.
John, then, might point at this as another hint of regeneration in the
parable of creation, viewed spiritually. The world of vegetation in
Genesis is divided into two classes. (1) Herbs tssv = all grasses and
plants which "yield seed." (2) Trees tsts mry = shrubs and arboreous
plants which have their seed enclosed in their fruit (Gen. i. 11, 12)
Such are the plants of God's planting in His garden. Of each the "seed"
from which he sprung, and which he will reproduce unless he becomes
barren and blighted, "is in him." "He cannot sin." It is against the
basis of his new nature. Of the new creation as of the old, the law
is--"his seed is in him."
The rest of this verse is interpreted in the Discourse upon 1 John v.
4.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION VI.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
En touto phanera estin ta tekna tou Theou kai ta tekna tou diabolou.
Pas ho me poion dikaiosunen ouk estin ek tou Theou, kai ho me agapon
ton adelphon autou; hoti aute estin he angelia hen ekousate ap' arches,
hina agapomen allelous; ou kathos Kain ek tou ponerou hen kai esphaxe
ton adelphon autou; kai charin tinos esphaxen auton? hoti ta erga autou
ponera hen, ta de tou adelphou autou dikaia. me thaumazete, adelphoi,
ei misei humas ho kosmos. Hemeis oidamen hoti metabebekamen ek tou
thanatou eis ten zoen, hoti agapomen tous adelphous; ho me agapon
menei. en to thanato; pas ho mison ton adelphon autou anthropoktonos
estin; kai oidate hoti pas anthropoktonos ouk echei zoen aionion en
auto menousan. En touto egnokamen ten agapen, hoti ekeinos huper hemon
ten psuchen autou etheke; kai hemeis opheilomen huper ton adelphon tas
psuchas theinai. hos d' han eche ton bion tou kosmou kai theore ton
adelphon autou chreian echonta kai kleise ta splanchna autou ap' autou,
pos he agape tou Theou menei en auto? teknia me agapomen logo mede
glosse, all' ergo kai aletheia. Kai en touto ginoskmen hoti ek tes
aletheias esmen, kai emprosthen autou peisomen tas kardias hemon; hoti
ean kataginoske hemon he kardia, hoti meizon estin ho Theos tes kardias
hemon, kai ginoskei panta. agapetoi, ean, he kardia hemon me
kataginoske hemon, parresian echomen pros ton Theon, kai ho ean
aitomen, lambanomen par' autou, hoti tas entolas autou teroumen, kai ta
aresta enopion autou poisumen. kai aute estin he entole autou, hina
pisteusomen to onomati tou uiou autou Iesou Christou, kai agapomen
allelous, kathos edoken entolen. kai ho teron tas entolas autou, en
auto menei, kai autos en auto. kai en touto ginoskomen hoti menei en
hemin, ek tou Pneumatos ou hemin edoken.
In hoc manifesti sunt filii Dei et filii diaboli. Omnis qui non est
iustus non est ex Deo, et qui non diligit fratrem suum; quoniam hæc est
adnuntiatio quam audistis ab initio, ut diligamus alterutrum, non sicut
Cain ex maligno erat, et occidit fratrem suum. Et propter quid occidit
eum? quoniam opera eius maligna erant, fratris autem eius iusta. Nolite
mirari fratres si odit nos mundus. Nos scimus quoniam translati sumus
de morte in vitam, quoniam diligimus fratres: qui non diligit, manet in
morte. Omnis qui odit fratrem suum homicida est, et scitis quoniam
omnis homicida non habet vitam æternam in se manentem. In hoc
cognovimus caritatem Dei, quoniam ille pro nobis animam suam posuit: et
nos debemus pro fratribus animas ponere. Qui habuerit substantiam mundi
et viderit fratrem suum necesse habere et clauserit viscera sua ab eo,
quomodo caritas Dei manet in eo? Filioli non diligamus verbo nec lingua
sed opere et veritate. In hoc cognovimus quoniam ex veritate sumus: et
in conspectu eius suademus corda nostra, quoniam si reprehenderit nos
cor nostrum, major est Deus corde nostro et novit omnia. Carissimi si
cor nostrum non reprehenderit nos, fiduciam habemus ad Deum, et
quodcumque petierimus accipiemus abeo, quoniam mandata eius custodemus
et ea quæ sunt placita coram eo facimus. Et hoc est mandatum eius ut
credamus in nomine filii eius Iesu Christi et diligamus alterutrum
sicut dedit mandatum nobis. Et qui servat mandata eius, in illo manet
et ipse in eo: et in hoc scimus quoniam manet in nobis, de spiritu quem
dedit nobis.
In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the
devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that
loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the
beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of
that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him?
Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. Marvel
not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed
from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not
his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a
murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in
him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life
for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso
hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth
up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in
him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue;
but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth,
and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemn us,
God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our
heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And
whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments,
and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His
commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus
Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment. And he that
keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we
know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.
In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the
devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that
loveth not his brother. For this is the message which ye heard from the
beginning, that we should love one another: not as Cain was of the evil
one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his works
were evil, and his brother's righteous. Marvel not, brethren, if the
world hateth you. We know that we have passed out of death into life,
because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death.
Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no
murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby know we love, because
He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for
the brethren. But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his
brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the
love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word,
neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth. Hereby shall we know
that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before him,
whereinsoever our heart condemn us; because God is greater than our
heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we
have boldness toward God; and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him,
because we keep His commandments, and do the things that are pleasing
in His sight. And this is His commandment, that we should believe in
the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as He gave
us commandment. And he that keepeth His commandments abideth in Him,
and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit
which He gave us.
In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil:
every one who is not doing righteousness is not of God, neither he that
is not loving his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from
the beginning that ye should love one another. Not as Cain was of the
wicked one and slew his brother (shall we be). And wherefore slew he
him? because his works were evil, but those of his brother righteous.
Brethren, marvel not if the world hate you. We know that we have passed
over from the death unto the life because we love the brethren. He who
loveth not abideth in the death. Every one who hateth his brother is a
murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in
him. Hereby know we The Love because He laid down His life for us: and
we are bound to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath the
living of the world and gazes on his brother having need and shuts out
his heart from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? Children let
us not love in word, nor with the tongue, but in work and truth. Hereby
shall we know that we are of the truth and shall persuade our hearts
before Him. For if our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart
and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not then have
we boldness toward God, and whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, for we
observe His commandments, and are doing those things that are pleasing
in His sight. And His commandment is this, that we should believe the
name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as He gave
commandment. And he who is observing His commandments abideth in Him,
and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us--out of the
fulness of the Spirit whereof He gave us.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE IX.
LOFTY IDEALS PERILOUS UNLESS APPLIED.
"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life
for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But
whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love
of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither
in tongue, but in deed and in truth."--1 John iii. 16-18.
Even the world sees that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ has very
practical results. Even the Christmas which the world keeps is fruitful
in two of these results--forgiving and giving. How many of the
multitudinous letters at that season contain one or other of these
things--either the kindly gift, or the tender of reconciliation; the
confession "I was wrong," or the gentle advance "we were both wrong."
Love, charity (as we rather prefer to say), in its effects upon all our
relations to others, is the beautiful subject of this section of our
Epistle. It begins with the message of love [230] itself--yet another
asterisk referring to the Gospel, [231] to the very substance of the
teaching which the believers of Ephesus had first received from St.
Paul, [232] and which had been emphasized by St. John. This message is
announced not merely as a sounding sentiment, but for the purpose of
being carried out into action. As in moral subjects virtues and vices
are best illustrated by their contraries; [233] so, beside the bright
picture of the Son of God, the Apostle points to the sinister likeness
of Cain. [234] After some brief and parenthetic words of pathetic
consolation, he states as the mark of the great transition from death
to life, the existence of love as a pervading spirit effectual in
operation. [235] The dark opposite of this is then delineated [236] in
consonance with the mode of representation just above. [237] But two
such pictures of darkness must not shadow the sunlit gallery of love.
There is another--the fairest and brightest. Our love can only be
estimated by likeness to it; it is imperfect unless it is conformed to
the print of the wounds, unless it can be measured by the standard of
the great Self-sacrifice. [238] But if this may be claimed as the one
real proof of conformity to Christ, much more is the limited partial
sacrifice of "this world's good" required. [239] This spirit, and the
conduct which it requires in the long run, will be found to be the test
of all solid spiritual comfort, [240] of all true self-condemnation or
self-acquittal. [241]
We may say of the verses prefixed to this discourse, that they bring
before us charity in its idea, in its example, in its
characteristics--in theory, in action, in life.
I.
We have here love in its idea, "hereby know we love." Rather "hereby
know we The Love." [242]
Here the idea of charity in us runs parallel with that in Christ. It is
a subtle but true remark, [243] that there is here no logical
inferential particle. "Because He laid down His life for us," is not
followed by its natural correlative "therefore we," but by a simple
connective "and we." The reason is this, that our duty herein is not a
mere cold logical deduction. It is all of one piece with The Love. "We
know The Love because He laid down His life for us; and we are in duty
bound for the brethren to lay down our lives."
Here, then, is the idea of love, as capable of realisation in us. It is
continuous unselfishness, to be crowned by voluntary death, if death is
necessary. The beautiful old Church tradition shows that this language
was the language of St. John's life. Who has forgotten how the Apostle
in his old age is said to have gone on a journey to find the young man
who had fled from Ephesus and joined a band of robbers; and to have
appealed to the fugitive in words which are the pathetic echo of
these--"if needs be I would die for thee as He for us?"
II.
The idea of charity is then practically illustrated by an incident of
its opposite. "But whoso hath this world's good, and gazes upon his
brother in need, and shuts up his heart against him, how doth the love
of God abide in him?" [244] The reason for this descent in thought is
wise and sound. High abstract ideas expressed in lofty and transcendent
language, are at once necessary and dangerous for creatures like us.
They are necessary, because without these grand conceptions our moral
language and our moral life would be wanting in dignity, in amplitude,
in the inspiration and impulse which are often necessary for duty and
always for restoration. But they are dangerous in proportion to their
grandeur. Men are apt to mistake the emotion awakened by the very sound
of these magnificent expressions of duty for the discharge of the duty
itself. Hypocrisy delights in sublime speculations, because it has no
intention of their costing anything. Some of the most abject creatures
embodied by the masters of romance never fail to parade their sonorous
generalizations. One of such characters, as the world will long
remember, proclaims that sympathy is one of the holiest principles of
our common nature, while he shakes his fist at a beggar. [245]
Every large speculative ideal then is liable to this danger; and he who
contemplates it requires to be brought down from his transcendental
region to the test of some commonplace duty. This is the latent link of
connection in this passage. The ideal of love to which St. John points
is the loftiest of all the moral and spiritual emotions which belong to
the sentiments of man. Its archetype is in the bosom of God, in the
eternal relations of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. "God is love."
Its home in humanity is Christ's heart of fire and flesh; its example
is the Incarnation ending in the Cross.
Now of course the question for all but one in thousands is not the
attainment of this lofty ideal--laying down his life for the brethren.
Now and then, indeed, the physician pays with his own death for the
heroic rashness of drawing out from his patient the fatal matter.
Sometimes the pastor is cut off by fever contracted in ministering to
the sick, or by voluntarily living and working in an unwholesome
atmosphere. Once or twice in a decade some heart is as finely touched
by the spirit of love as Father Damien, facing the certainty of death
from a long slow putrefaction, that a congregation of lepers may enjoy
the consolations of faith. St. John here reminds us that the ordinary
test of charity is much more commonplace. It is helpful compassion to a
brother who is known to be in need, manifested by giving to him
something of this world's "good"--of the "living" [246] of this world
which he possesses.
III.
We have next the characteristics of love in action. "My sons; let us
not love in word nor with the tongue; but in work and truth." There is
love in its energy and reality; in its effort and sincerity--active and
honest, without indolence and without pretence. We may well be reminded
here of another familiar story of St. John at Ephesus. When too old to
walk himself to the assembly of the Church, he was carried there. The
Apostle who had lain upon the breast of Jesus; who had derived from
direct communication with Him those words and thoughts which are the
life of the elect; was expected to address the faithful. The light of
the Ephesian summer fell upon his white hair; perhaps glittered upon
the mitre which tradition has assigned to him. But when he had risen to
speak, he only repeated--"little children, love one another." Modern
hearers are sometimes tempted to envy the primitive Christians of the
Ephesian Church, if for nothing else, yet for the privilege of
listening to the shortest sermon upon record in the annals of
Christianity. When Christian preachers have behind them the same long
series of virgin years, within them the same love of Christ and
knowledge of His mysteries; when their very presence evinces the same
sad, tender, smiling, weeping, all-embracing sympathy with the wants
and sorrows of humanity; they may perhaps venture upon the perilous
experiment of contracting their sermons within the same span as St.
John's. And when some, who like the hearers at Ephesus, are not
prepared for the repetition of an utterance so brief, begin to
ask--"why are you always saying this?"--the answer may well be in the
spirit of the reply which the aged Apostle is said to have
made--"because it is the commandment of the Lord, and sufficient, if it
only be fulfilled indeed."
IV.
This passage supplies an argument (capable, as we have seen in the
Introduction, of much larger expansion from the Epistle as a whole)
against mutilated views, fragmentary versions of the Christian life.
There are four such views which are widely prevalent at the present
time.
(1) The first of these is emotionalism; which makes the entire
Christian life consist in a series or bundle of emotions. Its origin is
the desire of having the feelings touched, partly from sheer love of
excitement; partly from an idea that if and when we have worked up
certain emotions to a fixed point we are saved and safe. This reliance
upon feelings is in the last analysis reliance upon self. It is a form
of salvation by works; for feelings are inward actions. It is an
unhappy anachronism which inverts the order of Scripture; which
substitutes peace and grace (the compendious dogma of the heresy of the
emotions) for grace and peace, the only order known to St. Paul and St.
John. [247] The only spiritual emotions spoken of in this Epistle are
joy, confidence, "assuring our hearts before Him": [248] the first as
the result of receiving the history of Jesus in the Gospel, the
Incarnation, and the blessed communion with God and the Church which it
involves; the second as tried by tests of a most practical kind.
(2) The second of these mutilated views of the Christian life is
doctrinalism--which makes it consist of a series or bundle of doctrines
apprehended and expressed correctly, at least according to certain
formulas, generally of a narrow and unauthorised character. According
to this view the question to be answered is--has one quite correctly
understood, can one verbally formulate certain almost scholastic
distinctions in the doctrine of justification? The well-known
standard--"the Bible only"--must be reduced by the excision of all
within the Bible except the writings of St. Paul; and even in this
selected portion faith must be entirely guided by certain portions more
selected still, so that the question finally may be reduced to this
shape--"am I a great deal sounder than St. John and St. James, a little
sounder than an unexpurgated St. Paul, as sound as a carefully
expurgated edition of the Pauline Epistles?"
(3) The third mutilated view of the Christian life is
humanitarianism--which makes it a series or bundle of philanthropic
actions.
There are some who work for hospitals, or try to bring more light and
sweetness into crowded dwelling-houses. Their lives are pure and noble.
But the one article of their creed is humanity. Altruism is their
highest duty. Their object, so far as they have any object apart from
the supreme rule of doing right, is to lay hold on subjective
immortality by living on in the recollection of those whom they have
helped, whose existence has been soothed and sweetened by their
sympathy. With others the case is different. Certain forms of this busy
helpfulness--especially in the laudable provision of recreations for
the poor--are an innocent interlude in fashionable life; sometimes,
alas! a kind of work of supererogation, to atone for the want of
devotion or of purity--possibly an untheological survival of a belief
in justification by works.
(4) The fourth fragmentary view of the Christian life is
observationism, which makes it to consist in a bundle or series of
observances. Frequent services and communions, perhaps with exquisite
forms and in beautifully decorated churches, have their dangers as well
as their blessings. However closely linked these observances may be,
there must still in every life be interstices between them. How are
these filled up? What spirit within connects together, vivifies and
unifies, this series of external acts of devotion? They are means to an
end. What if the means come to interpose between us and the end--just
as a great political thinker has observed that with legal minds the
forms of business frequently overshadow the substance of business,
which is their end, and for which they were called into existence. And
what is the end of our Christian calling? A life pardoned; in process
of purification; growing in faith, in love of God and man, in quiet
joyful service. Certainly a "rage for ceremonials and statistics," a
long list of observances, does not infallibly secure such a life,
though it may often be not alone the delighted and continuous
expression, but the constant food and support of such a life. But
assuredly if men trust in any of these things--in their emotions, in
their favourite formulas, in their philanthropic works, in their
religious observances--in anything but Christ, they greatly need to go
back to the simple text--"His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins."
Now, as we have said above, in distinction from all these fragmentary
views, St. John's Epistle is a survey of the completed Christian life,
founded upon his Gospel. It is a consummate fruit ripened in the long
summers of his experience. It is not a treatise upon the Christian
affections, nor a system of doctrine, nor an essay upon works of
charity, nor a companion to services.
Yet this wonderful Epistle presupposes at least much that is most
precious of all these elements. (1) It is far from being a burst of
emotionalism. Yet almost at the outset it speaks of an emotion as being
the natural result of rightly received objective truth. [249] St. John
recognises feeling, whether of supernatural or natural origin; [250]
but he recognises it with a certain majestic reserve. Once only does he
seem to be carried away. In a passage to which reference has just been
made, after stating the dogma of the Incarnation, he suffuses it with a
wealth of emotional colour. It is Christmas in his soul; the bells ring
out good tidings of great joy. "These things write we unto you, that
your joy may be full." (2) This Epistle is no dogmatic summary. Yet
combining its prooemium with the other of the fourth Gospel, we have
the most perfect statement of the dogma of the Incarnation. As we read
thoughtfully on, dogma after dogma stands out in relief. The divinity
of the Word, the reality of His manhood, the effect of His atonement,
His intercession, His continual presence, the personality of the Holy
Spirit, His gifts to us, the relation of the Spirit to Christ, the Holy
Trinity--all these find their place in these few pages. If St. John is
no mere doctrinalist he is yet the greatest theologian the Church has
ever seen. (3) Once more; if the Apostle's Christianity is no mere
humanitarian sentiment to encourage the cultivation of miscellaneous
acts of good-nature, yet it is deeply pervaded by a sense of the
integral connection of practical love of man with the love of God. So
much is this the case, that a large gathering of the most emotional of
modern sects is said to have gone on with a Bible reading in St. John's
Epistle until they came to the words--"we know that we have passed from
death unto life, because we love the brethren." The reader immediately
closed the book, pronouncing with general assent that the verse was
likely to disturb the peace of the children of God. Still St. John puts
humanitarianism in its right place as a result of something higher.
"This commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his
brother also." As if he would say--"do not sever the law of social life
from the law of supernatural life; do not separate the human fraternity
from the Divine Fatherhood." (4) No one can suppose that for St. John
religion was a mere string of observances. Indeed, to some his Epistle
has given the notion of a man living in an atmosphere where external
ordinances and ministries either did not exist at all, or only in
almost impalpable forms. Yet in that wonderful manual, "The Imitation
of Christ," there is not more than the faintest trace of any of these
external things; while no one could possibly argue that the author was
ignorant of, or lightly esteemed, the ordinances and sacraments amongst
which his life must have been spent. Certainly the fourth Gospel is
deeply sacramental. This Epistle, with its calm, unhesitating
conviction of the sonship of all to whom it is addressed; with its view
of the Christian life as in idea a continuous growth from a birth the
secret of whose origin is given in the Gospel; with its expressive
hints of sources of grace and power and of a continual presence of
Christ; with its deep mystical realisation of the double flow from the
pierced side upon the cross, and its thrice-repeated exchange of the
sacramental order "water and blood," [251] for the historical order
"blood and water"; unquestionably has the sacramental sense diffused
throughout it. The Sacraments are not in obtrusive prominence; yet for
those who have eyes to see they lie in deep and tender distances. Such
is the view of the Christian life in this letter--a life in which
Christ's truth is blended with Christ's love; assimilated by thought,
exhaling in worship, softening into sympathy with man's suffering and
sorrow. It calls for the believing soul, for the devout heart, for the
helping hand. It is the perfect balance in a saintly soul of feeling,
creed, communion, and work.
For of work for our fellow man it is that the question is asked half
despairingly--"whoso hath this world's good, and seeth" (gazes at)
[252] "his brother have need, and shutteth up his heart against him,
how doth the love of God [253] dwell in him?" Some can quietly look at
the poor brother; they see him in need, but they have not the
thoughtful eyes that see his need. They may belong to "the sluggard
Pity's vision-weaving tribe," who expend a sigh of sentiment upon such
spectacles, and nothing more. Or they may be hardened professors of the
"dismal science," who have learned to consider a sigh as the luxury of
ignorance or of feebleness. But for all practical purposes both these
classes interpose a too effectual barrier between their heart and their
brother's need. But true Christians are made partakers in Christ of the
mystery of human suffering. Even when they are not actually in sight of
brethren in want, their ears are ever hearing the ceaseless moaning of
the sea of human sorrow, with a sympathy which involves its own measure
of pain, though a pain which brings with it abundant compensation.
Their inner life has not merely won for itself the partly selfish
satisfaction of personal escape from punishment, great as that blessing
may be. They have caught something of the meaning of the secret of all
love--"we love because He first loved us." [254] In those words is the
romance (if we may dare to call it so) of the divine love-tale. Under
its influence the face once hard and narrow often becomes radiant and
softened; it smiles, or is tearful, in the light of the love of His
face who first loved.
It is this principle of St. John which is ever at work in Christian
lands. In hospitals it tells us that Christ is ever passing down the
wards; that He will have no stinted service; that He must have more for
His sick more devotion, a gentler touch, a finer sympathy; that where
His hand has broken and blessed, every particle is a sacred thing, and
must be treated reverently.
Are there any who are tempted to think that our text has become
antiquated; that it no longer holds true in the light of organised
charity, of economic science? Let them listen to one who speaks with
the weight of years of active benevolence, and with consummate
knowledge of its method and duties. [255] "There are men who, in their
detestation of roguery, forget that by a wholesale condemnation of
charity, they run the risk of driving the honest to despair and of
turning them into the very rogues of whom they desire so ardently to be
quit. These men are unconsciously playing into the hands of the
Socialists and the Anarchists, the only sections of society whose
distinct interest it is that misery and starvation should increase. No
doubt indiscriminate almsgiving is hurtful to the State as well as to
the individual who receives the dole, but not less dangerous would it
be to society if the principles of these stern political economists
were to be literally accepted by any large number of the rich, and if
charity ceased to be practised within the land. We cannot yet afford to
shut ourselves up in the castle of philosophic indifference, regardless
of the fate of those who have the misfortune to find themselves outside
its walls."
NOTES.
Ch. iii. 12-21.
Ver. 12. A second reference to the Book of Genesis within a few lines
(see ver. 8). It is characteristic of the historical spirit of St. John
that he does not entangle himself with the luxuriant upgrowth of wild
fable in which traditional Judaism has ever enveloped the simple
narrative of Cain and Abel in Genesis.
Ver. 15. St. John may refer to another passage in Genesis. "And Esau
said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then
will I slay my brother Jacob" (Gen. xxvii. 11-41).
Ver. 17. A Rabbinical saying is worth recording as an illustration of
the spirit in which the "living of this world" should be held. "He that
saith, Mine is thine, and thine is mine, is an idiot; he that saith,
Mine is mine, and thine is thine, is moderate; he that saith, Mine is
thine, and thine is thine, is charitable; but he that saith, Thine is
mine, and mine is mine, is wicked; even though it be only saying it in
his heart, to wish it were so." Paulus Fagius. Sentent. Heb.
Vers. 19, 20, 21. These verses probably present more difficulties than
any other portion of this Epistle. (1) For their construction. The
following note from a fasciculus (now no longer to be procured) written
by a master of sacred studies seems to us to say all that can be said
for a rendering different from that of the R. V. and our own.
"Ver. 20: hoti ean kataginoske hemon he kardia, hoti meizon estin ho
Theos. The difficulty is in the second hoti, which is ignored by the
Vulgate and A. V. The Revisers (after Hoogeveen, De Partic. p. 589, ed.
Schütz. and others) point ho,ti ean in the first clause, which they
join with the preceding verse: 'and shall assure our heart before him,
whereinsoever our heart condemn us; because God' etc. But this is quite
inadmissible, since nothing can be plainer than that ean kataginoske
(ver. 20) and ean me kataginoske (ver. 21) are both in protasi, and in
strict correlation with each other. Dean Alford suggests an ellipsis of
the verb substantive before the second hoti, and would translate:
'Because if our heart condemn us, (it is) because God' etc. He
instances such cases as ei tis en Christo, (he is) kaine ktisis, which
are quite dissimilar; but the following from St. Chrysostom (T. X. p.
122 B) fully bears out this construction; Ho zugos mou chrestos k.t.he.
ei de ouk aisthane tes kouphotetos, HoTI prothumian erromenen ouk
echeis; where I have expunged delon before hoti on the authority of
three out of four MSS. collated for these Homilies, the fourth, with
the old Latin version, for hoti prothumian reading me thaumases,
prothumian gar. In my note on that place I have pointed out that the
ellipsis is not of delon, but of to aition, causa est, quia. So in the
present instance we might translate: 'For if our heart condemn us, (the
reason is) because God is greater,' etc., were it not for the
difficulty of explaining how the fact of God's being greater than our
heart can be a valid reason for our heart condemning us. I would,
therefore, take the second hoti for quod, not quia, and suppose an
ellipsis of delon, as in 1 Tim. vi. 7, where see note."--Otium
Norvicense, by Frederic Field, M.A., LL.D. (pp. 153, 15).
Dr. Field s rendering then is: "For if our heart condemn us, (it is
evident) that God is greater than our heart."
(2) For the meaning of these verses. All interpretations appear to fall
into two classes; as St. John is supposed to aim at (a) soothing
conscience, or (b) awakening it. But may he not really intend to leave
people to think over a something which he has purposely omitted, and to
apply it as required? The saying "God is greater than our hearts, and
knoweth all things," probably cuts two ways. If my heart condemn me
justly, and with truth, much more so does God who is greater than my
heart. But, if my conscience is tenderly sensitive, scrupulous because
full of love, God's knowledge of my heart tells in this case on the
brighter side, as truly as in the other case it told on the darker
side. We may lull our heart. "A tranquil God tranquillises all things,
and to see His peacefulness is to be at peace." (St. Bernard in Cant.)
__________________________________________________________________
[230] Ver. 11.
[231] John xv. 12-17. See also the stress laid upon the unity of
believers; surely including love as well as doctrine in the great
High-Priestly prayer, John xvii. 21-23.
[232] "The message that ye heard from the beginning," conf. 1 John ii.
24.
[233] "Contrariorum eadem est scientia."
[234] This is one of the few references to the Old Testament history in
St. John's Epistle (Gen. iv. 1-8). To the theology of the Old Testament
there are many references; e.g., light and life. 1 John i. 1-5; John i.
4; Ps. xxxvi. 9. There is, however, another historical reference a few
verses above (1 John iii. 8)--a passage of primary importance because
it recognises the whole narrative of the Fall in Genesis, and affords a
commentary upon the words of Christ (John viii. 44). The writer has
somewhere seen an interesting suggestion that ver. 12 may contain some
allusion to the visit of Apollonius of Tyana to Ephesus. Apollonius
incited the mob to kill a beggar-man for the purpose of placing himself
on a level with Chalcas and others who caused the sacrifice of human
victims. The date of this incident would apparently coincide with the
closing years of St. John's life (Philostrat. vita Apollon., Act. ii.,
S. 5).
[235] Ver. 14
[236] Vers. 14, 15.
[237] Ver. 12.
[238] Ver. 16.
[239] Ver. 17.
[240] Vers. 18, 19.
[241] Vers. 20, 21.
[242] "For The Love I rather beseech thee" (Philemon vs. 9). The
addition in the A.V. (of God) rather impairs the sweetness and power,
the reverential reserve of the original.
[243] Of Prof. Westcott.
[244] Ver. 17
[245] It is suggestive that on Quinquagesima Sunday, when 1 Cor. xiii.
is the Epistle, St. Luke xviii. 31 sqq., is the Gospel. The lyric of
love is joined with a fragment of its epic. That fragment tells us of a
love which not only proclaimed itself ready to be sacrificed (Luke
xviii. 31-33), but condescended individually to the blind importunate
mendicant who sat by the wayside begging (vers. 35-43).
[246] The word here is bios not zoe. "Bios period of life; hence the
means by which it is sustained, means of life." (Archbp. Trench.) It is
to be wished that the R. V. had either kept "the good" of the A. V., or
adopted the word "living"--the translation of bios in Mark xii. 44;
Luke xxi. 4.
[247] 2 John 3.
[248] 1 John i. 4, ii. 28, iii. 21, iv. 17, v. 14, iii. 19 .
[249] 1 John i. 4.
[250] ta splanchna (ver. 17). This however is the only occurrence of
the word in St. John's writings. The substantive splanchna = emotions,
is found in classical poets. But the verb splanchnizomai occurs only in
LXX. and New Testament--and thus, like agape, is almost born within the
circle of revealed truth. The new dispensation so rich in the mercy of
God (Luke i. 78), so fruitful in mercy from man to man, may well claim
a new vocabulary in the department of tenderness and pity.
[251] 1 John v. 6, conf. John xix. 34.
[252] theore, ver. 17.
[253] "The love of which God is at once the object, and the author, and
the pattern." (Prof. Westcott.)
[254] 1 John iv. 19.
[255] Lord Meath.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION VII.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Agapetoi, me panti pneumati pisteuete, alla dokimazete ta pneumata, ei
ek tou Theou estin; hoti polloi pseudoprophetai exeleluthasin eis ton
kosmon. en touto ginoskete to Pneuma tou Theou; pan pneuma ho homologei
Iesoun Christon en sarki eleluthota, ek tou Theou esti. kai pan pneuma
ho me homologeiton Iesoun Christon en sarki eleluthota, ek tou Theou
ouk esti; kai touto esti to tou antichristou, ho akekoate hoti
erchetai, kai nun en to kosmo estin ede. Humeis ek tou Theou este,
teknia, kai nenikekate autous; hoti meizon estin ho en humin he ho en
to kosmo. Autoi ek tou kosmou eisi; dia touto ek tou kosmou lalousi,
kai ho kosmos auton akouei. hemeis ek tou Theou esmen; ho ginoskon ton
Theon, akouei hemon; hos ouk estin ek tou Theou, ouk akouei hemon. Ek
toutou ginoskomen to pneuma tes aletheias kai to pneuma tes planes.
Carissimi, nolite omni spiritui credere, sed probate spiritus si ex Deo
sint, quoniam multi pseudoprophetæ exierunt in mundum. In hoc
cognoscitur spiritus Dei. Omnis spiritus qui confitetur Iesum Christum
in carne venisse, ex Deo est: et omnis spiritus qui solvit Iesum
Christum ex Deo non est; et his est Antichristus quod audistis quoniam
venit et nunc iam in mundo est. Vos ex Deo estis, filioli, et vicistis
eum, quoniam maior est qui in vobis est quam qui in mundo. Ipsi de
mundo sunt: ideo de mundo locuntur, et mundus eos audit. Nos ex Deo
sumus: qui novit Deum audit nos; qui non est ex Deo, non audit nos. In
hoc cognoscimus spiritum veritatis et spiritum erroris.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are
of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby
know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth
not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is
that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come;
and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little
children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you,
than he that is in the world. They are of the world: therefore speak
they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that
knoweth God heareth us: he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby
know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they
are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesseth that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit which
confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the
antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the
world already. Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome
them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the
world. They are of the world, therefore speak they as of the world, and
the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us:
he who is not of God heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error.
Beloved, believe not any spirit, but try the spirits whether they are
of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby
know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ
come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit which confesseth not
Jesus is not of God: and this is that power of the antichrist whereof
ye have heard that it cometh, and even now it is in the world already.
Ye are of God, children, and have conquered them: because greater is He
that is in you, than he that is in the world. They are of the world,
therefore of the world is their manner of speech, and the world heareth
them. We are of God; he that knoweth God heareth us, he who is not of
God heareth not us. From this we know the spirit of The Truth, and the
spirit of the error.
NOTES.
Ch. iv. 1, 7.
Ver. 1. Believe not any spirit] me panti pneumati pisteuete. The
different constructions of pisteuein in St. John must be carefully
noted. (a) With dative as here--"believe not such an one;" take him not
upon trust, at his own word; credit him not with veracity. So in the
Gospel, our Lord continually complains that the Jews did not even
believe Him on His word--strong and clear as that word was with all the
freshness of Heaven, and all the transparency of truth. John v. 38, 46,
viii. 45, 46, x. 37.
(b) pisteuein eis = to make an act of faith in, to repose in as divine.
John iii. 36, iv. 39, vi. 35, xi. 25; 1 John v. 10.
(c) With an accusative = to be persuaded of the thing--to believe it
with an implied conviction of permanence in the persuasion--as in the
beautiful verse (iv. 16)--"we are fully persuaded of the love of God,"
we make it the creed of our heart. pepisteukamen ten agapen.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION VIII.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Agapetoi, agapomen al lelous, hoti he agape ek tou Theou esti, kai pas
ho agapon ek tou Theou gegennetai kai ginoskei ton Theon; ho me agapon
ouk egno ton Theon; hoti ho Theos agape estin. En touto ephanerothe he
agape tou Theou en hemin, hoti ton uion autou ton monogene apestalken
ho Theos eis ton kosmon, hina zesomen di autou. en touto estin he
agape, ouch hoti hemeis egapesamen ton Theon, all' hoti autos egapesen
hemas kai apesteile ton uion autou ilasmon peri ton hamartion hemon.
agapetoi, ei outos ho Theos egapesen hemas, kai hemeis hopheilomen
allelous agapan. Theon oudeis popote tetheatai; ean agapomen allelous,
ho Theos en hemin menei, kai he agape autou teteleiomene estin en
hemin. en touto ginoskomen hoti en auto menomen kai autos en hemin,
hoti ek tou Pneumatos autou dedoken hemin. Kai hemeis tetheametha kai
marturoumen hoti ho pater apestalke ton uiou sotera tou kosmou. hos an
homologese hoti Iesous estin ho uios tou Theou, ho Theos en auto menei
kai autos en to Theo. Kai hemeis egnokamen kai pepisteukamen ten agapen
hen echei ho Theos en hemin. ho Theos agape esti, kai ho menon en te
agape en to Theo menei, kai ho Theos en auto. En touto teteleiotai he
agape meth' hemon, hina parresian echomen en te hemera tes kriseos;
hoti kathos ekeinos esti kai hemeis esmen en to kosmo touto. phobos ouk
estin en te agape, all' he teleia agape exo ballei ton phobon, hoti ho
phobos kolasin echei, ho de phoboumenos ou teteleiotai en te agape.
hemeis agapomen auton, hoti autos protos egapesen emas. Ean tis eipe.
Hoti agapo ton Theon, kai ton adelphon autou mise, pseustes estin; ho
gar me agapon ton adelphon autou hon heorake ton Theon hon ouch heorake
pos dunatai agapan? kai tauten ten entolen echomen ap' autou, hina ho
agapon ton Theon agapa kai ton adelphon autou.
Pas ho pisteuon hoti Iesous estin ho Christos ek tou Theou gegennetai;
kai pas ho agapon ton gennesanta agapa kai ton gegennemenon ex autou.
en touto ginoskomen hoti agapomen ta tekna tou Theou, hotan ton Theon
agapomen kai tas entolas autou teromen. aute gar estin he agape tou
Theou, hina tas entolas autou teromen.
Carissimi, diligamus invicem, quoniam caritas ex Deo est, et omnis qui
diligit ex Deo natus est et cognoscit Deum. Qui non diligit non novit
Deum, quoniam Deus caritas est. In hoc apparuit caritas Dei in nobis,
quoniam Filium Suum unigenitum misit Deus in mundum, ut vivamus per
Eum. In hoc est caritas, non quasi nos dilexerimus Deum, sed quoniam
ipse dilexit nos et misit Filium suum propitionem pro peccatis nostris.
Carissimi, si sic Deus dilexit nos, et nos debemus alterutrum diligere.
Deum nemo vidit unquam: si diligamus invicem, Deus in nobis manet, et
caritas eius in nobis perfecta est. In hos intellegimus quoniam in eum
manemus et ipse in nobis, quoniam de Spiritu Suo dedit nobis. Et nos
vidimus et testificamur quoniam Pater misit Filium salvatorem mundi.
Quicunque confessus fuerit quoniam Iesus est Filius Dei, Deus in eo
manet, et ipse in Deo. Et nos cognovimus et credimus, caritati Dei quam
habet Deus in nobis. Deus caritas est, et qui manet in caritate in Deo
manet, et Deus in eo. In hoc perfecta est nobiscum caritas ut fiduciam
habeamus in die iudicii quia sicut ille est et nos sumus in hoc mundo.
Timor non est in caritate, sed perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem;
quoniam timor poenam habet, qui autem timet non est perfectus in
caritate. Nos ergo diligamus invicem quoniam Deus prior dilexit nos. Si
quis dixerit quoniam diligo Deum, et fratrem suum oderit, mendax est:
qui enim non diligit fratrem suum quem videt, Deum quem non videt
quomodo potest diligere? Et hoc mandatum habemus a Deo, ut qui diligat
Deum diligat et fratrem suum.
Omnis qui credit quoniam Iesus est Christus, ex Deo natus est; et omnis
qui diligit eum qui genuit, diligit eum qui natus est ex eo. In hoc
cognoscimus quoniam diligimus natos Dei, cum Deum diligamus et mandata
eius faciamus. Hæc est enim caritas Dei, ut mandata eius custodiamus.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth
not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward
us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we
might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that
He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man
hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us,
and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him,
and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. And we have seen
and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the
world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love
that God hath to us. God is love: and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may
have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in
this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out
fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in
love. We love Him, because He first loved us. If a man say, I love God,
and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his
brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
And this commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God love his
brother also.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every
one that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and
keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His
commandments.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one
that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein was the love of God manifested
in us, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we
might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that
He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man
hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us,
and His love is perfected in us: hereby know we that we abide in Him,
and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. And we have
beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the
Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of
God, God abideth in him, and he in God. And we know and have believed
the love which God hath in us. God is love; and he that abideth in love
abideth in God, and God abideth in him. Herein is love made perfect
with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as
He is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love: but
perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he
that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love, because He first
loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a
liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love
God whom he hath not seen. And this commandment have we from Him, that
he who loveth God love his brother also.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God: and
whosoever loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of
Him. Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we love God,
and do His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His
commandments.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth
not God, for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God in us,
because that God hath sent His Son His only begotten Son into the world
that we might live through Him. In this is The Love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son as propitiation for our
sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also are bounden to love one
another. God no one hath ever yet beholden: if we love one another God
abideth in us and His love is perfected in us. Herein know we that we
abide in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us out of the fulness
of His Spirit. And we have beheld and are bearing witness that the
Father hath sent the Son as the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall
confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God.
And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us. God is
love; and he that abideth in love, abideth in God, and God in him.
Herein hath The Love been perfected with us that we may have boldness
in the Day of the Judgment: because as He is so are we in this world.
Fear is not in love: but the perfect love casteth out fear, because
fear bringeth punishment with it. He that is fearing is not made
perfect in his love. We love Him because He first loved us. If a man
say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, God whom he hath not seen how
can he love? And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth
God love his brother also.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and every
one who loveth Him that begat loveth also Him that is begotten of Him.
Herein we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and
do His commandments: for this is the love of God, that we observe His
commandments.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE X.
BOLDNESS IN THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.
"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the
Day of Judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world."--1 John
iv. 17.
It has been so often repeated that St. John's eschatology is idealized
and spiritual, that people now seldom pause to ask what is meant by the
words. Those who repeat them most frequently seem to think that the
idealized means that which will never come into the region of
historical fact, and that the spiritual is best defined as the unreal.
Yet, without postulating the Johannic authorship of the
Apocalypse--where the Judgment is described with the most awful
accompaniments of outward solemnity [256] --there are two places in
this Epistle which are allowed to drop out of view, but which bring us
face to face with the visible manifestations of an external Advent. It
is a peculiarity of St. John's style (as we have frequently seen) to
strike some chord of thought, so to speak, before its time; to allow
the prelusive note to float away, until suddenly, after a time, it
surprises us by coming back again with a fuller and bolder resonance.
"And now, my sons," [257] (had the Apostle said) "abide in Him, that if
He shall be manifested, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed
shrinking from Him [258] at His coming." [259] In our text the same
thought is resumed, and the reality of the Coming and Judgment in its
external manifestation as emphatically given as in any other part of
the New Testament. [260]
We may here speak of the conception of the Day of the Judgment: of the
fear with which that conception is encompassed; and of the sole means
of the removal of that fear which St. John recognises.
I.
We examine the general conception of "the Day of the Judgment," as
given in the New Testament.
As there is that which with terrible emphasis is marked off as "the
Judgment," [261] "the Parousia," so there are other judgments or
advents of a preparatory character. As there are phenomena known as
mock suns, or haloes round the moon, so there are fainter reflections
ringed round the Advent, the Judgment. [262] Thus, in the development
of history, there are successive cycles of continuing judgment;
preparatory advents; less completed crises, as even the world calls
them.
But against one somewhat widely-spread way of blotting the Day of the
Judgment from the calendar of the future--so far as believers are
concerned--we should be on our guard. Some good men think themselves
entitled to reason thus--"I am a Christian. I shall be an assessor in
the judgment. For me there is, therefore, no judgment day." And it is
even held out as an inducement to others to close with this conclusion,
that they "shall be delivered from the bugbear of judgment."
The origin of this notion seems to be in certain universal tendencies
of modern religious thought.
The idolatry of the immediate--the prompt creation of effect--is the
perpetual snare of revivalism. Revivalism is thence fatally bound at
once to follow the tide of emotion, and to increase the volume of the
waters by which it is swept along. But the religious emotion of this
generation has one characteristic by which it is distinguished from
that of previous centuries. The revivalism of the past in all Churches
rode upon the dark waves of fear. It worked upon human nature by
exaggerated material descriptions of hell, by solemn appeals to the
throne of Judgment. Certain schools of biblical criticism have enabled
men to steel themselves against this form of preaching. An age of soft
humanitarian sentiment--superficial, and inclined to forget that
perfect Goodness may be a very real cause of fear--must be stirred by
emotions of a different kind. The infinite sweetness of our Father's
heart--the conclusions, illogically but effectively drawn from this, of
an Infinite good-nature, with its easy-going pardon, reconciliation all
round, and exemption from all that is unpleasant--these, and such as
these, are the only available materials for creating a great volume of
emotion. An invertebrate creed; punishment either annihilated or
mitigated; judgment, changed from a solemn and universal assize, a bar
at which every soul must stand, to a splendid, and--for all who can say
I am saved--a triumphant pageant in which they have no anxious concern;
these are the readiest instruments, the most powerful leverage, with
which to work extensively upon masses of men at the present time. And
the seventh article of the Apostles' Creed must pass into the limbo of
exploded superstition.
The only appeal to Scripture which such persons make, with any show of
plausibility, is contained in an exposition of our Lord's teaching in a
part of the fifth chapter of the fourth Gospel. [263] But clearly there
are three Resurrection scenes which may be discriminated in those
words. The first is spiritual, a present awakening of dead souls, [264]
in those with whom the Son of Man is brought into contact in His
earthly ministry. The second is a department of the same spiritual
resurrection. The Son of God, with that mysterious gift of Life in
Himself, [265] has within Him a perpetual spring of rejuvenescence for
a faded and dying world. A renewal of hearts is in process during all
the days of time, a passage for soul after soul out of death into life.
[266] The third scene is the general Resurrection and general Judgment.
[267] The first was the resurrection of comparatively few; the second
is the resurrection of many; the third will be the resurrection of all.
If it is said that the believer "cometh not into judgment," the word in
that place plainly signifies condemnation. [268]
Clear and plain above all such subtleties ring out the awe-inspiring
words: "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the
Judgment;" "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ."
[269]
Reason supplies us with two great arguments for the General Judgment.
One from the conscience of history, so to speak; the other from the
individual conscience.
1. General history points to a general judgment. If there is no such
judgment to come, then there is no one definite moral purpose in human
society. Progress would be a melancholy word, a deceptive appearance, a
stream that has no issue, a road that leads nowhere. No one who
believes that there is a Personal God, Who guides the course of human
affairs, can come to the conclusion that the generations of man are to
go on for ever without a winding-up, which shall decide upon the doings
of all who take part in human life. In the philosophy of nature, the
affirmation or denial of purpose is the affirmation or denial of God.
So in the philosophy of history. Society without the General Judgment
would be a chaos of random facts, a thing without rational retrospect
or definite end--i.e., without God. If man is under the government of
God, human history is a drama, long-drawn, and of infinite variety,
with inconceivably numerous actors. But a drama must have a last act.
The last act of the drama of history is "The Day of the Judgment."
2. The other argument is derived from the individual conscience.
Conscience, as a matter of fact, has two voices. One is imperative; it
tells us what we are to do. One is prophetic, and warns us of something
which we are to receive. If there is to be no Day of the General
Judgment, then the million prophecies of conscience will be belied, and
our nature prove to be mendacious to its very roots.
There is no essential article of the Christian creed like this which
can be isolated from the rest, and treated as if it stood alone. There
is a solidarity of each with all the rest. Any which is isolated is in
danger itself, and leaves the others exposed. For they have an internal
harmony and congruity. They do not form a hotchpot of credenda. They
are not so many beliefs but one belief. Thus the isolation of articles
is perilous. For, when we try to grasp and to defend one of them, we
have no means left of measuring it but by terms of comparison which are
drawn from ourselves, which must therefore be finite, and by the
inadequacy of the scale which they present, appear to render the
article of faith thus detached incredible. Moreover, each article of
our creed is a revelation of the Divine attributes, which meet together
in unity. To divide the attributes by dividing the form in which they
are revealed to us is to belie and falsify the attribute; to give a
monstrous development to one by not taking into account some other
which is its balance and compensation. Thus, many men deny the truth of
a punishment which involves final separation from God. They glory in
the legal judgment which "dismisses hell with costs." But they do so by
fixing their attention exclusively upon the one dogma which reveals one
attribute of God. They isolate it from the Fall, from the Redemption by
Christ, from the gravity of sin, from the truth that all whom the
message of the Gospel reaches may avoid the penal consequences of sin.
It is impossible to face the dogma of eternal separation from God
without facing the dogma of Redemption. For Redemption involves in its
very idea the intensity of sin, which needed the sacrifice of the Son
of God; and further, the fact that the offer of salvation is so free
and wide that it cannot be put away without a terrible wilfulness.
In dealing with many of the articles of the creed, there are opposite
extremes. Exaggeration leads to a revenge upon them which is, perhaps,
more perilous than neglect. Thus, as regards eternal punishment, in one
country ghastly exaggerations were prevalent. It was assumed that the
vast majority of mankind "are destined to everlasting punishment"; that
"the floor of hell is crawled over by hosts of babies a span long." The
inconsistency of such views with the love of God, and with the best
instincts of man, was victoriously and passionately demonstrated. Then
unbelief turned upon the dogma itself, and argued, with wide
acceptance, that "with the overthrow of this conception goes the whole
redemption-plan, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and
the grand climax of the Church-scheme, the General Judgment." But the
alleged article of faith was simply an exaggeration of that faith, and
the objections lay altogether against the exaggeration of it.
II.
We have now to speak of the removal of that terror which accompanies
the conception of the Day of the Judgment, and of the sole means of
that emancipation which St. John recognises. For terror there is in
every point of the repeated descriptions of Scripture--in the
surroundings, in the summons, in the tribunal, in the trial, in one of
the two sentences.
"God is love," writes St. John, "and he that abideth in love abideth in
God: and God abideth in him. In this [abiding], love stands perfected
with us, [270] and the object is nothing less than this," not that we
may be exempted from judgment, but that "we may have boldness in the
Day of the Judgment." Boldness! It is the splendid word which denotes
the citizen's right of free speech, the masculine privilege of
courageous liberty. [271] It is the tender word which expresses the
child's unhesitating confidence, in "saying all out" to the parent. The
ground of the boldness is conformity to Christ. Because "as He is,"
with that vivid idealizing sense, frequent in St. John when he uses it
of our Lord--"as He is," delineated in the fourth Gospel, seen by "the
eye of the heart" [272] with constant reverence in the soul, with
adoring wonder in heaven, perfectly true, pure, and righteous--"even
so" (not, of course, with any equality in degree to that consummate
ideal, but with a likeness ever growing, an aspiration ever advancing
[273] )--"so are we in this world," purifying ourselves as He is pure.
Let us draw to a definite point our considerations upon the Judgment,
and the Apostle's sweet encouragement for the "day of wrath, that
dreadful day."
It is of the essence of the Christian faith to believe that the Son of
God, in the Human Nature which He assumed, and which He has borne into
heaven, shall come again, and gather all before Him, and pass sentence
of condemnation or of peace according to their works. To hold this is
necessary to prevent terrible doubts of the very existence of God; to
guard us against sin, in view of that solemn account; to comfort us
under affliction.
What a thought for us, if we would but meditate upon it! Often we
complain of a commonplace life, of mean and petty employment. How can
it be so, when at the end we, and those with whom we live, must look
upon that great, overwhelming sight! Not an eye that shall not see Him,
not a knee that shall not bow, not an ear that shall not hear the
sentence. The heart might sink and the imagination quail under the
burden of the supernatural existence which we cannot escape. One of two
looks we must turn upon the Crucified--one willing as that which we
cast on some glorious picture, or on the enchantment of the sky; the
other unwilling and abject. We should weep first with Zechariah's
mourners, with tears at once bitter because they are for sin, and sweet
because they are for Christ.
But, above all things, let us hear how St. John sings us the sweet low
hymn that breathes consolation through the terrible fall of the triple
hammer-stroke of the rhyme in the Dies iræ. We must seek to lead upon
earth a life laid on the lines of Christ's. Then, when the Day of the
Judgment comes; when the cross of fire (so, at least, the early
Christians thought) shall stand in the black vault; when the sacred
wounds of Him who was pierced shall stream over with a light beyond
dawn or sunset; we shall find that the discipline of life is complete,
that God's love after all its long working with us stands perfected, so
that we shall be able, as citizens of the kingdom, as children of the
Father, to say out all. A Christlike character in an un-Christlike
world--this is the cure of the disease of terror. Any other is but the
medicine of a quack. "There is no fear in love; but the perfect love
casteth out fear, because fear brings punishment; and he that feareth
is not made perfect in love." [274]
We may well close with that pregnant commentary on this verse which
tells us of the four possible conditions of a human soul--"without
either fear or love; with fear, without love; with fear and love; with
love, without fear." [275]
NOTES.
Ch. iv. 7, v. 3.
Ver. 3. This verse should divide about the middle.
__________________________________________________________________
[256] Apoc. xx. 12, 13.
[257] 1 John ii. 28.
[258] aischunthomen ap' autou, see Jerem. xii. 13 (for bvs mn). Prof.
Westcott happily quotes, "as a guilty thing surprised."
[259] Coming, en te parousia autou. The word is not found elsewhere in
the Johannic group of writings. But by his use of it here, St. John
falls into line with the whole array of apostolic witnesses--with St.
Matthew (xxiv. 3-27, 37, 39); with St. Paul (passim); with St. James
(v. 7, 8); with St. Peter (2 Peter i. 16, iii. 4-12). This fact may
well warn critics of the precarious character of theories founded upon
"the negative phenomena of the books of the New Testament." (See
Professor Westcott's excellent note, The Epistles of St. John, 80.)
[260] (en te hemera tes kriseos)--"in the Day of the Judgment"--cf.
Apoc. xiv. 7. We have "in THE Judgment" (Matt. xii. 41, 42; Luke x. 14,
xi. 31, 32)--the indefinite "day of judgment" (Matt. x. 15, xi. 22, 24;
Mark vi. 11).
[261] 2 Peter ii. 9, iii. 7--but "The Day of The Judgment," here only.
[262] Cf. our Lord's words--"henceforth (ap' arti) ye shall see the Son
of Man coming." (Matt. xxvi. 64.)
[263] John v. 21, 29.
[264] Ver. 21.
[265] Ver. 26.
[266] Ver. 24.
[267] Ver. 28, 29.
[268] The writer ventures to lament the substitution of "judgment" for
"condemnation," ver. 24. R.V. It is a verbal consistency, or minute
accuracy, purchased at the heavy price of a false thought, suggested to
many readers who are not scholars. "In John's language krisis is, (a)
that judgment which came in pain and misery to those who rejected the
salvation offered to mankind by Christ, iii. 19, k.t.l., erchesthai eis
krisin, to fall into the state of one thus condemned, v. 24. (b)
Judgment of condemnation to the wicked, with ensuing rejection, v. 29."
Grimm. Lex. N.T. 247. Between this passage of the fourth Gospel and
Apoc. xx., there is a marvellous inner harmony of thought. "The first
resurrection" (ver. 6) = John v. 21, 26; then vv. 11, 12, 13. = John v.
28, 29.
[269] Heb. ix. 27; 2 Cor. v. 10, cf. Rom. xiv. 10; Apoc. xx. 11, 12,
13.
[270] meth' hemon--God's love in itself is perfected. It might be made
as perfect as man's nature will admit by an instantaneous act; but God
works jointly, in companionship with us. The grace of God "preventing
us that we may will, works with us when we will." The essential idea of
meta is companionship or connexion. (See Donaldson, Gr. Gr., 50, 52 a.)
[271] eleutherias he polis meste kai parresias gignetai. (Plat., Rep.,
557 B). The word is derived from pan and rhesis.
[272] Ephes. i. 18.
[273] Cf. Matt. v. 48.
[274] Ver. 18.
[275] Bengel. The writer must acknowledge his obligation to Professor
Westcott, whose exposition gives us a peculiar conception of the depth
of St. John's teaching here. (The Epistles of St. John, 149-153).
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION IX.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Kai ai entolai autou bareiai ouk eisin; hoti pan to gegennemenon ek tou
Theou nika ton kosmon; kai aute estin he nike he nikesasa ton kosmon,
he pistis hemon. tis estin ho nikon ton kosmon, ei me ho pisteuon hoti
Iesous estin ho uios tou Theou? Outos estin ho elthon di hudatos kai
aimatos, Iesous ho Christos; ouk en to hudati monon, all' en to hudati
kai en to aimati; kai to pneuma esti to marturoun, hoti to pneuma estin
he aletheia. hoti treis eisin oi marturountes, to pneuma, kai to hudor,
kai to aima; kai oi treis eis to hen eisin. Ei ten marturian ton
anthropon lambanomen, he marturia tou Theou meizon estin; hoti aute
estin he marturia tou Theou, hoti memartureken peri tou uiou autou. ho
pisteuon eis ton uion tou Theou, echei ten marturian en auto. ho me
pisteuon to Theo, pseusten pepoieken auton, hoti ou pepisteuken eis ten
marturian, hen memartureken ho Theos peri tou uiou autou. Kai aute
estin he marturia hoti zoen aionion edoken hemin ho Theos; kai aute he
zoe en to uio autou estin. ho echon ton uion, echei ten zoen; ho me
echon ton uion tou Theou, ten zoen ouk echei. Tauta egrapsa humin hina
eidete hoti zoen echete aionion, oi pisteuontes eis to honoma tou uiou
tou Theou. Kai aute estin he parresia hen echomen pros auton, hoti ean
ti aitometha kata to thelema autou, akouei hemon; kai ean oidamen hoti
akouei hemon ho an aitometha, oidamen hoti echomen ta aitemata a
etekamen par' autou. Ean tis ide ton adelphon autou amartanonta
amartian me pros thanaton, aitesei, kai dosei auto zoen tois
hamartanousi me pros thanaton. estin amartia pros thanaton; ou peri
ekeines lego hina erotese; pasa adikia amartia estin, kai estin amartia
ou pros thanaton.
Et mandata eius gravia non sunt. Quoniam omne quod natum est ex Deo
vincit mundum: et hæc est victoria quæ vincit mundum, fides nostra.
Quis est qui vincit mundum nisi qui credit quoniam Iesus est Filius
Dei? Hic est qui venit per aquam et sanguinem, Iesus Christus: non in
aqua solum, sed in aqua et sanguine. Et Spiritus est qui testificatur
quoniam Christus est veritas. Quia tres sunt qui testimonium dant,
Spiritus et aqua et sanguis, et tres unum sunt. Si testimonium hominum
accipimus, testimonium Dei maius est: quoniam hoc est testimonium Dei
quod maius est, quia testificatus est de Filio suo. Qui credit in Filio
Dei, habet testimonium Dei in se: qui non credit mendacem facit eum:
quoniam non credidit in testimonio quod testificatus est Deus de Filio
suo. Et hoc est testimonium, quoniam vitam eternam dedit nobis Deus, et
hæc vita in Filio eius. Qui habet Filium habet vitam: qui non habet
filium vitam non habet. Hæc scripsi vobis ut sciatis quoniam vitam
habetis æternam, qui creditis in nomine Filii Dei. Et hæc est fiducia
quam habemus ad eum quia quodcumque petierimus secundum voluntatem eius
audit nos. Et scimus quoniam audit nos quicquid petierimus, scimus
quoniam habemus petitiones quas postulamus ab eo. Qui scit fratrem suum
peccare peccatum non ad mortem, petit, et dabit ei vitam, peccantibus
non ad mortem. Est peccatum ad mortem: non pro illo dico ut roget quis.
Omnis iniquitas peccatum est: et est peccatum ad mortem.
And His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God
overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the
world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that
believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He that came by water
and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and
blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is
truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three
that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood:
and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the
witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which He hath
testified of His Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the
witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar;
because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son. And this
is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is
in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the
Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have
eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if ask any thing
according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He hear us,
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired
of Him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death,
he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto
death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for
it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
And His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is begotten of
God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that hath overcome
the world, even our faith. And who is he that overcometh the world, but
he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He that came by
water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with
the water and with the blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth
witness, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three who bear
witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three agree
in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is
greater: for the witness of God is this, that He hath borne witness
concerning His Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the
witness in him: he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar: because
he hath not believed in the witness that God hath borne concerning His
Son. And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and
this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that
hath not the Son of God hath not the life. These things have I written
unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you
that believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the boldness
which we have toward Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His
will, He heareth us: and if we know that He heareth us whatsoever we
ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him. If
any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and
God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. (There is a
sin unto death). There is sin unto death; not concerning this sin am I
saying that he should make request. All unrighteousness is sin, and
there is sin not unto death.
And His commandments are not heavy, for whatsoever is born of God
conquereth the world: and this is the conquest that hath conquered the
world--the Faith of us. Who is he that is conquering the world, but he
that is believing that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He that came by
water and blood--Jesus Christ: not with the water only, but with the
water and with the blood. And the Spirit is that which is ever
witnessing that the Spirit is the truth. For three are they who are
ever witnessing, the Spirit and the water and the blood: and the three
agree in one.
If we receive the witness of men the witness of God is greater; because
the witness of God is this, because (I say) He hath witnessed
concerning His Son. He that is believing on the Son of God hath the
witness in him, he that is not believing God hath made Him a liar:
because he is not a believer in the witness that God witnessed
concerning His Son. And this is the witness, that God gave unto us
eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath
the life, he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life. These
things have I written unto you that ye may know that ye have eternal
life--ye that are believing in the name of the Son of God! And this is
the boldness which we have to Himward, that if we ask any thing
according to His will, He is hearing us: and if we know that He is
hearing us, we know that we have the desires that we have desired from
Him. If any man see his brother sinning sin not unto death, he shall
ask, and God shall give him life--(I mean for those who are not sinning
unto death). Not concerning this sin am I saying that he should make
request. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not unto death.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE XI.
BIRTH AND VICTORY.
"And His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of
God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but
he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?"--1 John v. 3, 4, 5.
St. John here connects the Christian birth with victory. He tells us
that of the supernatural life the destined and (so to speak) natural
end is conquest.
Now in this there is a contrast between the law of nature and the law
of grace. No doubt the first is marvellous. It may even, if we will, in
one sense be termed a victory; for it is the proof of a successful
contest with the blind fatalities of natural environment. It is in
itself the conquest of a something which has conquered a world below
it. The first faint cry of the baby is a wail no doubt; but in its very
utterance there is a half triumphant undertone. Boyhood, youth, opening
manhood--at least in those who are physically and intellectually
gifted--generally possess some share of "the rapture of the strife"
with nature and with their contemporaries.
"Youth hath triumphal mornings; its days bound
From night as from a victory."
But sooner or later that which pessimists style "the martyrdom of life"
sets in. However brightly the drama opens, the last scene is always
tragic. Our natural birth inevitably ends in defeat.
A birth and a defeat is thus the epitome of each life which is
naturally brought into the field of our present human existence. The
defeat is sighed over, sometimes consummated, in every cradle; it is
attested by every grave.
But if birth and defeat is the motto of the natural life, birth and
victory is the motto of every one born into the city of God.
This victory is spoken of in our verses as a victory along the whole
line. It is the conquest of the collective Church, of the whole mass of
regenerate humanity, so far as it has been true to the principle of its
birth [276] --the conquest of the Faith which is "The Faith of us,"
[277] who are knit together in one communion and fellowship in the
mystical body of the Son of God, Christ our Lord. But it is something
more than that. The general victory is also a victory in detail. Every
true individual believer shares in it. [278] The battle is a battle of
soldiers. The abstract ideal victory is realised and made concrete in
each life of struggle which is a life of enduring faith. The triumph is
not merely one of a school, or of a party. The question rings with a
triumphant challenge down the ranks--"who is the ever-conqueror of the
world, but the ever-believer that Jesus is the Son of God?"
We are thus brought to two of St. John's great master-conceptions, both
of which came to him from hearing the Lord who is the Life--both of
which are to be read in connection with the fourth Gospel--the
Christian's Birth and his victory.
I.
The Apostle introduces the idea of the birth which has its origin from
God precisely by the same process to which attention has already been
more than once directed.
St. John frequently mentions some great subject; at first like a
musician who with perfect command of his instrument, touches what seems
to be an almost random key, faintly, as if incidentally and half
wandering from his theme. But just as the sound appears to be absorbed
by the purpose of the composition, or all but lost in the distance, the
same chord is struck again more decidedly; and then, after more or less
interval, is brought out with a music so full and sonorous, that we
perceive that it has been one of the master's leading ideas from the
very first. So, when the subject is first spoken of, we hear--"every
one that doeth righteousness is born of Him." [279] The subject is
suspended for a while; then comes a somewhat more marked reference.
"Whosoever is born of God is not a doer of sin; and he cannot continue
sinning, because of God he is born." There is yet one more tender
recurrence to the favourite theme--"every one that loveth is born of
God." [280] Then, finally here at last the chord, so often struck,
grown bolder since the prelude, gathers all the music round it. It
interweaves with itself another strain which has similarly been gaining
amplitude of volume in its course, until we have a great Te Deum,
dominated by two chords of Birth and Victory. "This is the conquest
that has conquered the world--the Faith which is of us."
We shall never come to any adequate notion of St. John's conception of
the Birth of God, without tracing the place in his Gospel to which his
asterisk in this place refers. To one passage only can we turn--our
Lord's conversation with Nicodemus. "Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God--except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." [281] The germ of the
idea of entrance into the city, the kingdom of God, by means of a new
birth, is in that storehouse of theological conceptions, the psalter.
There is one psalm of a Korahite seer, enigmatical it may be, shadowed
with the darkness of a divine compression, [282] obscure from the glory
that rings it round, and from the gush of joy in its few and broken
words. The 87th Psalm is the psalm of the font, the hymn of
regeneration. The nations once of the world are mentioned among them
that know the Lord. They are counted when He writeth up the peoples.
Glorious things are spoken of the City of God. Three times over the
burden of the song is the new birth by which the aliens were made free
of Sion.
This one was born there,
This one and that one was born in her,
This one was born there. [283]
All joyous life is thus brought into the city of the new-born. "The
singers, the solemn dances, the fresh and glancing springs, are in
thee." [284] Hence, from the notification of men being born again in
order to see and enter into the kingdom, our Lord, as if in surprise,
meets the Pharisee's question--"how can these things be?"--with
another--"art thou that teacher in Israel, [285] and understandest not
these things?" Jesus tells His Church for ever that every one of His
disciples must be brought into contact with two worlds, with two
influences--one outward, the other inward; one material, the other
spiritual; one earthly, the other heavenly; one visible and
sacramental, the other invisible and divine. Out of these he must come
forth new-born.
Of course it may be said that "the water" here coupled with the Spirit
is figurative. But let it be observed first, that from the very
constitution of St. John's intellectual and moral being things outward
and visible were not annihilated by the spiritual transparency which he
imparted to them. Water, literal water, is everywhere in his writings.
In his Gospel more especially he seems to be ever seeing, ever hearing
it. He loved it from the associations of his own early life, and from
the mention made of it by his Master. And as in the Gospel water is, so
to speak, one of the three great factors and centres of the book; [286]
so now in the Epistle, it still seems to glance and murmur before him.
"The water" is one of the three abiding witnesses in the Epistle also.
Surely, then, our Apostle would be eminently unlikely to express "the
Spirit of God" without the outward water by "water and the Spirit." But
above all, Christians should beware of a "licentious and deluding
alchemy of interpretation which maketh of anything whatsoever it
listeth." In immortal words--"when the letter of the law hath two
things plainly and expressly specified, water and the Spirit; water, as
a duty required on our part, the Spirit, as a gift which God bestoweth;
there is danger in so presuming to interpret it, as if the clause which
concerneth ourselves were more than needed. We may by such rare
expositions attain perhaps in the end to be thought witty, but with ill
advice." [287]
But, it will further be asked, whether we bring the Saviour's
saying--"except any one be born again of water and the Spirit"--into
direct connection with the baptism of infants? Above all, whether we
are not encouraging every baptised person to hold that somehow or other
he will have a part in the victory of the regenerate?
We need no other answer than that which is implied in the very force of
the word here used by St. John--"all that is born of God conquereth the
world." "That is born" is the participle perfect. [288] The force of
the perfect is not simply past action, but such action lasting on in
its effects. Our text, then, speaks only of those who having been born
again into the kingdom continue in a corresponding condition, and
unfold the life which they have received. The Saviour spoke first and
chiefly of the initial act. The Apostle's circumstances, now in his old
age, naturally led him to look on from that. St. John is no "idolater
of the immediate." Has the gift received by his spiritual children worn
long and lasted well? What of the new life which should have issued
from the New Birth? Regenerate in the past, are they renewed in the
present?
This simple piece of exegesis lets us at once perceive that another
verse in this Epistle, often considered of almost hopeless perplexity,
is in truth only the perfection of sanctified (nay, it may be said, of
moral) common-sense; an intuition of moral and spiritual instinct.
"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin: for his seed remaineth
in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." We have just
seen the real significance of the words "he that is born of God"--he
for whom his past birth lasts on in its effects. "He doeth not sin," is
not a sin-doer, makes it not his "trade," as an old commentator says.
Nay, "he is not able to be" (to keep on) "sinning." "He cannot sin." He
cannot! There is no physical impossibility. Angels will not sweep him
away upon their resistless pinions. The Spirit will not hold him by the
hand as if with a mailed grasp, until the blood spirts from his
finger-tips, that he may not take the wine-cup, or walk out to the
guilty assignation. The compulsion of God is like that which is
exercised upon us by some pathetic wounded-looking face that gazes
after us with a sweet reproach. Tell the honest poor man with a large
family of some safe and expeditious way of transferring his neighbour's
money to his own pocket. He will answer, "I cannot steal:" that is, "I
cannot steal, however much it may physically be within my capacity,
without a burning shame, an agony to my nature worse than death." On
some day of fierce heat, hold a draught of iced wine to a total
abstainer, and invite him to drink. "I cannot," will be his reply.
Cannot! He can, so far as his hand goes; he cannot, without doing
violence to a conviction, to a promise, to his own sense of truth. And
he who continues in the fulness of his God-given Birth "does not do
sin," "cannot be sinning." Not that he is sinless, not that he never
fails, or does not sometimes fall; not that sin ceases to be sin to
him, because he thinks that he has a standing in Christ. But he cannot
go on in sin without being untrue to his birth; without a stain upon
that finer, whiter, more sensitive conscience, which is called "spirit"
in a son of God; without a convulsion in his whole being which is the
precursor of death, or an insensibility which is death actually begun.
How many such texts as these are practically useless to most of us! The
armoury of God is full of keen swords which we refrain from handling,
because they have been misused by others. None is more neglected than
this. The fanatic has shrieked out--"sin in my case! I cannot sin. I
may hold a sin in my bosom; and God may hold me in His arms for all
that. At least, I may hold that which would be a sin in you and most
others; but to me it is not sin." On the other hand, stupid goodness
maunders out some unintelligible paraphrase, until pew and reader yawn
from very weariness. Divine truth in its purity and plainness is thus
discredited by the exaggeration of the one, or buried in the leaden
winding-sheet of the stupidity of the other.
In leaving this portion of our subject we may compare the view latent
in the very idea of infant baptism with that of the leader of a
well-known sect upon the beginnings of the spiritual life in children.
"May not children grow up into salvation, without knowing the exact
moment of their conversion?" asks "General" Booth. His answer is--"yes,
it may be so; and we trust that in the future this will be the usual
way in which children may be brought to Christ." The writer goes on to
tell us how the New Birth will take place in future. "When the
conditions named in the first pages of this volume are complied
with--when the parents are godly, and the children are surrounded by
holy influences and examples from their birth, and trained up in the
spirit of their early dedication--they will doubtless come to know and
love and trust their Saviour in the ordinary course of things. The Holy
Ghost will take possession of them from the first. Mothers and fathers
will, as it were, put them into the Saviour's arms in their swaddling
clothes, and He will take them, and bless them, and sanctify them from
the very womb, and make them His own, without their knowing the hour or
the place when they pass from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom
of light. In fact, with such little ones it shall never be very dark,
for their natural birth shall be, as it were, in the spiritual
twilight, which begins with the dim dawn, and increases gradually until
the noonday brightness is reached; so answering to the prophetic
description, 'The path of the just is as the shining light, that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day.'" [289]
No one will deny that this is tenderly and beautifully written. But
objections to its teaching will crowd upon the mind of thoughtful
Christians. It seems to defer to a period in the future, to a new era
incalculably distant, when Christendom shall be absorbed in
Salvationism, that which St. John in his day contemplated as the normal
condition of believers, which the Church has always held to be capable
of realization, which has been actually realized in no few whom most of
us must have known. Further; the fountain-heads of thought, like those
of the Nile, are wrapped in obscurity. By what process grace may work
with the very young is an insoluble problem in psychology, which
Christianity has not revealed. We know nothing further than that Christ
blessed little children. That blessing was impartial, for it was
communicated to all who were brought to Him; it was real, otherwise He
would not have blessed them at all. That He conveys to them such grace
as they are capable of receiving is all that we can know. And yet
again; the Salvationist theory exalts parents and surroundings into the
place of Christ. It deposes His sacrament, which lies at the root of
St. John's language, and boasts that it will secure Christ's end,
apparently without any recognition of Christ's means.
II.
The second great idea in the verses at the head of this discourse is
Victory. The intended issue of the new birth is conquest--"all that is
born of God conquers the world."
The idea of victory is almost [290] exclusively confined to St. John's
writings. The idea is first expressed by Jesus--"be of good cheer: I
have conquered the world." [291] The first prelusive touch in the
Epistle, hints at the fulfilment of the Saviour's comfortable word in
one class of the Apostle's spiritual children. "I write unto you, young
men, because ye have conquered the wicked one. I have written unto you,
young men, because ye have conquered the wicked one." [292] Next, a
bolder and ampler strain--"ye are of God, little children, and have
conquered them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is
in the world." [293] Then with a magnificent persistence, the trumpet
of Christ wakens echoes to its music all down and round the defile
through which the host is passing--"all that is born of God conquereth
the world: and this is the conquest that has conquered the world--the
Faith which is ours." [294] When, in St. John's other great book, we
pass with the seer into Patmos, the air is, indeed, "full of noises and
sweet sounds." But dominant over all is a storm of triumph, a
passionate exultation of victory. Thus each epistle to each of the
seven Churches closes with a promise "to him that conquereth."
The text promises two forms of victory.
1. A victory is promised to the Church universal. "All that is born of
God conquereth the world." This conquest is concentrated in, almost
identified with "the Faith." Primarily, in this place, the term (here
alone found in our Epistle) is not the faith by which we believe, but
the Faith which is believed--as in some other places; [295] not faith
subjective, but The Faith objectively. [296] Here is the dogmatic
principle. The Faith involves definite knowledge of definite
principles. The religious knowledge, which is not capable of being put
into definite propositions, we need not trouble ourselves greatly
about. But we are guarded from over-dogmatism. The word "of us" which
follows "the Faith" is a mediating link between the objective and the
subjective. First, we possess this Faith as a common heritage. Then, as
in the Apostle's creed we begin to individualise this common possession
by prefixing "I believe" to every article of it. Then the victory
contained in the creed, the victory which the creed is (for more truly
again than of Duty may it be said of Faith, "thou who art victory"
[297] ), is made over to each who believes. Each, and each alone, who
in soul is ever believing, in practice is ever victorious.
This declaration is full of promise for missionary work. There is no
system of error, however ancient, subtle, or highly organised, which
must not go down before the strong collective life of the regenerate.
No less encouraging is it at home. No form of sin is incapable of being
overthrown. No school of anti-Christian thought is invulnerable or
invincible. There are other apostates besides Julian who will
cry--"Galilæe, vicisti!"
2. The second victory promised is individual, for each of us. Not only
where cathedral-spires lift high the triumphant cross; on battle-fields
which have added kingdoms to Christendom; by the martyr's stake, or in
the arena of the Coliseum, have these words proved true. The victory
comes down to us. In hospitals, in shops, in courts, in ships, in
sick-rooms, they are fulfilled for us. We see their truth in the
patience, sweetness, resignation, of little children, of old men, of
weak women. They give a high consecration and a glorious meaning to
much of the suffering that we see. What, we are sometimes tempted to
cry--is this Christ's Army? are these His soldiers, who can go anywhere
and do anything? Poor weary ones! with white lips, and the beads of
death-sweat on their faces, and the thorns of pain ringed like a crown
round their foreheads; so wan, so worn, so tired, so suffering, that
even our love dares not pray for them to live a little longer yet. Are
these the elect of the elect, the vanguard of the regenerate, who carry
the flag of the cross where its folds are waved by the storm of battle;
whom St. John sees advancing up the slope with such a burst of cheers
and such a swell of music that the words--"this is the
conquest"--spring spontaneously from his lips? Perhaps the angels
answer with a voice which we cannot hear--"whatsoever is born of God
conquereth the world." May we fight so manfully that each may render if
not his "pure" yet his purified
"soul unto his captain Christ,
Under whose colours he hath fought so long:"
--that we may know something of the great text in the Epistle to the
Romans, with its matchless translation--"we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us" [298] --that arrogance of victory which is at
once so splendid and so saintly.
__________________________________________________________________
[276] This is expressed, after St. John's fashion, by the neuter, pan
to gegennemenon ek tou Theou. ver. 4.
[277] he pistis hemon, ver. 4.
[278] ho nikon ton kosmon, ho pisteuon, ver. 5.
[279] 1 John ii. 29.
[280] 1 John iv. 7.
[281] John iii. 5.
[282] sphodra ainigmatodes kai skoteinos eiremenos. Euseb.
[283]
vh ylrsm. Ver. 4.
'ys v'ys ylrbh. Ver. 5.
vh ylrsm. Ver. 6. Psalm lxxxvii.
[284]
"Both they who sing and they who dance,
With sacred song are there;
In thee fresh brooks and soft streams glance,
And all my fountains clear."
Milton, Paraphrase Ps. lxxxvii. 7.
This, on the whole, seems to be considered the most tenable
interpretation.
[285] Su ei ho didaskalos tou Israel; John iii. 10.
[286] John i. 26, ii. 6, 9, iii. 5-22, iv. 6-16, v. 3, 39, ix. 7, xiii.
1-5, xix. 34.
[287] Hooker, E. P., V. lix. (4).
[288] So the perfect is used throughout. gegennetai. ii. 29, iii. 9,
iv. 7. pan to gegennemenon. v. 4. Very remarkably below, pas ho
gegennemenos--alla ho gennetheis ek tou Theou; the first of the
regenerate man who continues in that condition of grace, the second of
the Begotten Son of God who keeps His servant. 1 John v. 18.
[289] Training of children; or How to Make the Children into Saints and
Soldiers of Jesus Christ. By the General of the Salvation Army. London:
Salvation Army Book Stores, pp. 162, 163.
[290] Not quite, cf. Rom. viii. 37, xii. 21; 1 Cor. xv. 55, 57. The
substantive nike occurs only 1 John v. 4. A slightly different form
(nikos) is in Matt. xii. 20; 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55, 57.
[291] John xvi. 33.
[292] John ii. 13, 14.
[293] 1 John iv. 4.
[294] It does not seem possible to convey to the English reader the
fourfold harping upon the word (1 John v. 4, 5) by any other rendering.
"The victory that hath overcome the world" (R.V.) fails in this. The
noble translation of hupernikomen (Rom. viii. 37), happily retained by
the Revisers, is rendered consistent by the translation here proposed.
[295] Apoc. ii. 13, xiv. 12.
[296] Fides quæ creditur, not quâ creditur.
[297] "Thou who art victory!" Wordsworth, Ode to Duty.
[298] hupernikomen. Rom. viii. 37.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE XII.
THE GOSPEL AS A GOSPEL OF WITNESS; THE THREE WITNESSES.
"It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water,
and the blood; and these three agree in one. If we receive the
witness of men, the witness of God is greater, for this is the
witness of God which He hath testified of His Son. He that believeth
on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."--1 John v. 6-10.
It has been said that Apostles and apostolic men were as far as
possible removed from common-sense, and have no conception of evidence
in our acceptation of the word. About this statement there is scarcely
even superficial plausibility. Common-sense is the measure of ordinary
human tact among palpable realities. In relation to human existence it
is the balance of the estimative faculties; the instinctive summary of
inductions which makes us rightly credulous and rightly incredulous,
which teaches us the supreme lesson of life, when to say "yes," and
when to say "no." Uncommon sense is superhuman tact among no less real
but at present impalpable realities; the spiritual faculty of forming
spiritual inductions aright. So St. John among the three great canons
of primary truth with which he closes his Epistle writes--"we know that
the Son of God hath come and is present, and hath given us
understanding, that we know Him who is true." [299] So with evidences.
Apostles did not draw them out with the same logical precision, or
rather not in the same logical form, which the modern spirit demands.
Yet they rested their conclusions upon the same abiding principle of
evidence, the primary axiom of our entire social life--that there is a
degree of human evidence which practically cannot deceive. "If we
receive the witness of men." The form of expression implies that we
certainly do. [300]
Peculiar difficulty has been felt in understanding the paragraph. And
one portion of it remains difficult after any explanation. But we shall
succeed in apprehending it as a whole only upon condition of taking one
guiding principle of interpretation with us.
The word witness is St. John's central thought here. He is determined
to beat it into the minds of his readers by the most unsparing
iteration. He repeats it ten times over, as substantive or verb, in six
verses. [301] His object is to turn our attention to his Gospel, and to
this distinguishing feature of it--its being from beginning to end a
Gospel of witness. This witness he declares to be fivefold. (1) The
witness of the Spirit, of which the fourth Gospel is pre-eminently
full. (2) The witness of the Divine Humanity, of the God-Man who is not
man deified, but God humanified. This verse is no doubt partly
polemical, against heretics of the day, who would clip the great
picture of the Gospel, and force it into the petty frame of their
theory. This is He (the Apostle urges) who came on the stage of the
world's and the Church's history [302] as the Messiah, under the
condition, so to speak, of water and blood; [303] bringing with Him,
accompanied by, not the water only, but the water and the blood. [304]
Cerinthus separated the Christ, the divine Æon, from Jesus the holy but
mortal man. The two, the divine potency and the human existence, met at
the waters of Jordan, on the day of the Baptism, when the Christ united
Himself to Jesus. But the union was brief and unessential. Before the
crucifixion, the divine ideal Christ withdrew. The man suffered. The
impassible immortal potency was far away in heaven. St. John denies the
fortuitous juxta-position of two accidentally-united existences. We
worship one Lord Jesus Christ, attested not only by Baptism in Jordan,
the witness of water, but by the death on Calvary, the witness of
blood. He came by water and blood, as the means by which His office was
manifested; but with the water and with the blood, as the sphere in
which He exercises that office. When we turn to the Gospel, and look at
the pierced side, we read of blood and water, the order of actual
history and physiological fact. But here St. John takes the ideal,
mystical, sacramental order, water and blood--cleansing and
redemption--and the sacraments which perpetually symbolise and convey
them. Thus we have Spirit, water, blood. Three are they who are ever
witnessing. [305] These are three great centres round which St. John's
Gospel turns. [306] These are the three genuine witnesses, the trinity
of witness, the shadow of the Trinity in heaven. (3) Again the fourth
Gospel is a Gospel of human witness, a tissue woven out of many lines
of human attestation. It records the cries of human souls overheard and
noted down at the supreme crisis-moment of life, from the Baptist,
Philip, and Nathanael, to the everlasting spontaneous creed of
Christendom on its knees before Jesus, the cry of Thomas ever rushing
molten from a heart of fire--"my Lord and my God." (4) But if we
receive, as we assuredly must and do receive, the overpowering and
soul-subduing mass of attesting human evidence, how much more must we
receive the Divine witness, the witness of God so conspicuously
exhibited in the Gospel of St. John! "The witness of God is greater,
because this" (even the history in the pages to which he adverts) "is
the witness; because" (I say with triumphant reiteration) "He hath
witnessed concerning His Son." [307] This witness of God in the last
Gospel is given in four forms--by Scripture, [308] by the Father, [309]
by the Son Himself, [310] by His works. [311] (5) This great volume of
witness is consummated and brought home by another. He who not merely
coldly assents to the word of Christ, but lifts the whole burden of his
belief on to the Son of God, [312] hath the witness in him. That which
was logical and external becomes internal and experimental.
In this ever-memorable passage, all scholars know that an interpolation
has taken place. The words--"in heaven the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear
witness in earth"--are a gloss. A great sentence of one of the first of
critics may well reassure any weak believers who dread the candour of
Christian criticism, or suppose that it has impaired the evidence for
the great dogma of the Trinity. "If the fourth century knew that text,
let it come in, in God's name; but if that age did not know it, then
Arianism in its height was beaten down without the help of that verse;
and, let the fact prove as it will, the doctrine is unshaken." [313]
The human material with which they have been clamped should not blind
us to the value of the heavenly jewels which seemed to be marred by
their earthly setting.
__________________________________________________________________
It is constantly said--as we think with considerable
misapprehension--that in his Epistle St. John may imply, but does not
refer directly to any particular incident in, his Gospel. It is our
conviction that St. John very specially includes the Resurrection--the
central point of the evidences of Christianity--among the things
attested by the witness of men. We propose in another discourse to
examine the Resurrection from St. John's point of view.
__________________________________________________________________
[299] dedoken hemin dianoian hina ginoskomen k.t.l. 1 John v. 20. N. T.
lexicographers give as its meaning intelligentia (einsicht). See Grimm.
Bretschn., s.v. Prof. Westcott remarks that "generally nouns which
express intellectual powers are rare in St. John's writings." But
dianoia is the word by which the LXX. translate the Hebrew lv, and has
thus a moral and emotional tinge imparted to it. We may compare the
sense in which Aristotle uses it in his Poetics for the cast of
thought, or general sentiment. (Poet., vi.)
[300] ei ten marturian ton anthropon lambanomen. 1 John v. 9.
[301] The A. V. (very unhappily) tried to minimise this reiteration by
the introduction of synonyms in four places--"bear record," "record"
(vv. 7, 10, 11), "hath testified" (ver. 9).
[302] ho elthon.
[303] di hudatos kai aimatos.
[304] ouk en to hudati monon, all' en to hudati kai en to aimati.
[305] treis eisin oi marturountes, ver. 8.
[306] The Water, John iii. 5, cf. i. 26-33, ii. 9, iii. 23, iv. 13, v.
4, ix. 7. The Blood, vi. 53, 54, 56, xix. 34. The Spirit, vii. 39,
xiv., xv., xvi., xx. 22. The water centres in Baptism (iii. 5); the
blood is symbolised, exhibited, in Holy Communion (vi.); the Spirit is
perpetually making them effective, and especially by the appointed
ministry (xx. 22).
[307] hoti aute estin he marturia tou Theou, hoti memartureken peri tou
uiou autou, ver. 9.
[308] v. 39, 46, etc.
[309] viii. 18.
[310] viii. 17, 18.
[311] ver. 36, x. 25.
[312] ho pisteuon eis ton uion tou Theou, ver. 10. (See Bihs Ellicott
on the force of various prepositions with pisteuo. Comment, on Pastoral
Epistles.)
[313] Bentley. Letter of January 1st, 1717.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE XIII.
THE WITNESS OF MEN (APPLIED TO THE RESURRECTION).
"If we receive the witness of men."--1 John v. 9.
At an early period in the Christian Church the passage in which these
words occur, was selected as a fitting Epistle for the First Sunday
after Easter, when believers may be supposed to review the whole body
of witness to the risen Lord and to triumph in the victory of faith. A
consideration of the unity of essential principles in the narratives of
the Resurrection will afford the best illustration of the comprehensive
canon--"if we receive the witness of men."--if we consider the unity of
essential principles in the narratives of the Resurrection, and draw
the natural conclusions from them.
I.
Let us note the unity of essential principles in the narratives of the
Resurrection.
St. Matthew hastens on from Jerusalem to the appearance in Galilee.
"Behold! He goeth before you into Galilee," is, in some sense, the key
of the 28th chapter. St. Luke, on the other hand, speaks only of
manifestations in Jerusalem or its neighbourhood.
Now St. John's Resurrection history falls in the 20th chapter into four
pieces, with three manifestations in Jerusalem. The 21st chapter (the
appendix-chapter) also falls into four pieces, with one manifestation
to the seven disciples in Galilee.
St. John makes no profession of telling us all the appearances which
were known to the Church, or even all of which he was personally
cognisant. In the treasures of the old man's memory there were many
more which, for whatever reason, he did not write. But these distinct
continuous specimens of a permitted communing with the eternal
glorified life (supplemented on subsequent thought by another in the
last chapter) are as good as three or four hundred for the great
purpose of the Apostle. "These are written that ye might believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." [314]
Throughout St. John's narrative every impartial reader will find
delicacy of thought, abundance of matter, minuteness of detail. He will
find something more. While he feels that he is not in cloudland or
dreamland, he will yet recognise that he walks in a land which is
wonderful, because the central figure in it is One whose name is
Wonderful. The fact is fact, and yet it is something more. For a short
time poetry and history are absolutely coincident. Here, if anywhere,
is Herder's saying true, that the fourth Gospel seems to be written
with a feather which has dropped from an angel's wing.
The unity in essential principles which has been claimed for these
narratives taken together is not a lifeless identity in details. It is
scarcely to be worked out by the dissecting-maps of elaborate
harmonies. It is not the imaginative unity which is poetry; nor the
mechanical unity, which is fabrication; nor the passionless unity,
which is commended in a police-report. It is not the thin unity of
plain-song; it is the rich, unity of dissimilar tones blended into a
fugue.
This unity may be considered in two essential agreements of the four
Resurrection histories.
1. All the Evangelists agree in reticence on one point--in abstinence
from one claim.
If any of us were framing for himself a body of such evidence for the
Resurrection as should almost extort acquiescence, he would assuredly
insist that the Lord should have been seen and recognised after the
Resurrection by miscellaneous crowds--or, at the very least, by hostile
individuals. Not only by a tender Mary Magdalene, an impulsive Peter, a
rapt John, a Thomas through all his unbelief nervously anxious to be
convinced. Let Him be seen by Pilate, by Caiaphas, by some of the Roman
soldiers, of the priests, of the Jewish populace. Certainly, if the
Evangelists had simply aimed at effective presentation of evidence,
they would have put forward statements of this kind.
But the apostolic principle--the apostolic canon of Resurrection
evidence--was very different. St. Luke has preserved it for us, as it
is given by St. Peter. "Him God raised up the third day, and gave Him
to be made manifest after He rose again from the dead, not to all the
people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us." [315] He
shall, indeed, appear again to all the people, to every eye; but that
shall be at the great Advent. St. John, with his ideal tenderness, has
preserved a word of Jesus, which gives us St. Peter's canon of
Resurrection evidence, in a lovelier and more spiritual form. Christ as
He rose at Easter should be visible, but only to the eye of love, only
to the eye which life fills with tears and heaven with light--"yet a
little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me ... He that
loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will manifest Myself to
Him." [316] Round that ideal canon St. John's Resurrection-history is
twined with undying tendrils. Those words may be written by us with our
softest pencils over the 20th and 21st chapters of the fourth Gospel.
There is--very possibly there can be--under our present human
conditions, no manifestation of Him who was dead and now liveth, except
to belief, or to that kind of doubt which springs from love.
That which is true of St. John is true of all the Evangelists.
They take that Gospel, which is the life of their life. They bare its
bosom to the stab of Celsus, [317] to the bitter sneer plagiarised by
Renan--"why did He not appear to all, to His judges and enemies? Why
only to one excitable woman, and a circle of His initiated?" "The
hallucination of a hysterical woman endowed Christendom with a risen
God." [318] An apocryphal Gospel unconsciously violates this apostolic,
or rather divine canon, by stating that Jesus gave His grave-clothes to
one of the High Priest's servants. [319] There was every reason but one
why St. John and the other Evangelists should have narrated such
stories. There was only one reason why they should not, but that was
all-sufficient. Their Master was the Truth as well as the Life. They
dared not lie.
Here, then, is one essential accordance in the narratives of the
Resurrection. They record no appearances of Jesus to enemies or to
unbelievers.
2. A second unity of essential principle will be found in the
impression produced upon the witnesses.
There was, indeed, a moment of terror at the sepulchre, when they had
seen the angel clothed in the long white garment. "They trembled, and
were amazed; neither said they anything to any man; for they were
afraid." So writes St. Mark. [320] And no such word ever formed the
close of a Gospel! On the Easter Sunday evening there was another
moment when they were "terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they
had seen a spirit." [321] But this passes away like a shadow. For man,
the Risen Jesus turns doubt into faith, faith into joy. For woman, He
turns sorrow into joy. From the sacred wounds joy rains over into their
souls. "He showed them His hands and His feet ... while they yet
believed not for joy and wondered." "He showed unto them His hands and
His side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." [322]
Each face of those who beheld Him wore after that a smile through all
tears and forms of death. "Come," cried the great Swedish singer,
gazing upon the dead face of a holy friend, "come and see this great
sight. Here is a woman who has seen Christ." Many of us know what she
meant, for we too have looked upon those dear to us who have seen
Christ. Over all the awful stillness--under all the cold whiteness as
of snow or marble--that strange soft light, that subdued radiance, what
shall we call it? wonder, love, sweetness, pardon, purity, rest,
worship, discovery. The poor face often dimmed with tears, tears of
penitence, of pain, of sorrow, some perhaps which we caused to flow, is
looking upon a great sight. Of such the beautiful text is true, written
by a sacred poet in a language of which so many verbs are pictures.
"They looked unto Him, and were lightened." [323] That meeting of
lights without a name it is which makes up what angels call joy. There
remained some of that light on all who had seen the Risen Lord. Each
might say--"have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?"
This effect, like every effect, had a cause.
Scripture implies in the Risen Jesus a form with all heaviness and
suffering lifted off it--with the glory, freshness, elasticity, of the
new life, overflowing with beauty and power. He had a voice with some
of the pathos of affection, making its sweet concession to human
sensibility: saying, "Mary," "Thomas," "Simon, son of Jonas." He had a
presence at once so majestic that they durst not question Him, yet so
full of magnetic attraction that Magdalene clings to His feet, and
Peter flings himself into the waters when he is sure that it is the
Lord. [324]
Now let it be remarked that this consideration entirely disposes of
that afterthought of critical ingenuity which has taken the place of
the base old Jewish theory--"His disciples came by night, and stole Him
away." [325] That theory, indeed, has been blown into space by
Christian apologetics. And now not a few are turning to the solution
that He did not really die upon the cross, but was taken down alive.
There are other, and more than sufficient refutations. One from the
character of the august Sufferer, who would not have deigned to receive
adoration upon false pretences. One from the minute observation by St.
John of the physiological effect of the thrust of the soldier's lance,
to which he also reverts in the context.
But here, we only ask what effect the appearance of the Saviour among
His disciples, supposing that He had not died, must unquestionably have
had.
He would only have been taken down from the cross something more than
thirty hours. His brow punctured with the crown of thorns; the wounds
in hands, feet, and side, yet unhealed; the back raw and torn with
scourges; the frame cramped by the frightful tension of six long
hours--a lacerated and shattered man, awakened to agony by the coolness
of the sepulchre and by the pungency of the spices; a spectral,
trembling, fevered, lamed, skulking thing--could that have seemed the
Prince of Life, the Lord of Glory, the Bright and Morning Star? Those
who had seen Him in Gethsemane and on the cross, and then on Easter,
and during the forty days, can scarcely speak of His Resurrection
without using language which attains to more than lyrical elevation.
Think of St. Peter's anthemlike burst. "Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again to a lively hope,
by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Think of the words
which St. John heard Him utter. "I am the First and the Living, and
behold! I became dead, and I am, living unto the ages of ages." [326]
Let us, then, fix our attention upon the unity of all the Resurrection
narratives in these two essential principles. (1) The appearances of
the Risen Lord to belief and love only. (2) The impression common to
all the narrators of glory on His part, of joy on theirs.
We shall be ready to believe that this was part of the great body of
proof which was in the Apostle's mind, when pointing to the Gospel with
which this Epistle was associated, he wrote of this human but most
convincing testimony--"if we receive," as assuredly we do, "the witness
of men"--of evangelists among the number.
II.
Too often such discussions as these end unpractically enough. Too often
"When the critic has done his best,
The pearl of price at reason's test
On the Professor's lecture table
Lies, dust and ashes levigable."
But, after all, we may well ask: can we afford to dispense with this
well-balanced probability? Is it well for us to face life and death
without taking it, in some form, into the account?
Now at the present moment, it may safely be said that, for the best and
noblest intellects imbued with the modern philosophy, as for the best
and noblest of old who were imbued with the ancient philosophy,
external to Christian revelation, immortality is still, as before, a
fair chance, a beautiful "perhaps," a splendid possibility.
Evolutionism is growing and maturing somewhere another Butler, who will
write in another, and possibly more satisfying chapter, than that least
convincing of any in the Analogy--"of a Future State."
What has Darwinism to say on the matter?
Much. Natural selection seems to be a pitiless worker; its instrument
is death. But, when we broaden our survey, the sum-total of the result
is everywhere advance--what is mainly worthy of notice, in man the
advance of goodness and virtue. For of goodness, as of freedom,
"The battle once begun
Though baffled oft, is always won."
Humanity has had to travel thousands of miles, inch by inch, towards
the light. We have made such progress that we can see that in time,
relatively short, we shall be in noonday. After long ages of strife, of
victory for hard hearts and strong sinews, goodness begins to wipe away
the sweat of agony from her brow; and will stand, sweet, smiling,
triumphant in the world. A gracious life is free for man; generation
after generation a softer ideal stands before us, and we can conceive a
day when "the meek shall inherit the earth." Do not say that evolution,
if proved à outrance, brutalises man. Far from it. It lifts him from
below out of the brute creation. What theology calls original sin,
modern philosophy the brute inheritance--the ape, and the goat, and the
tiger--is dying out of man. The perfecting of human nature and of human
society stands out as the goal of creation. In a sense, all creation
waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. Nor need the true
Darwinian necessarily fear materialism. "Livers secrete bile--brains
secrete thought," is smart and plausible, but it is shallow. Brain and
thought are, no doubt, connected--but the connection is of
simultaneousness, of two things in concordance indeed, but not related
as cause and effect. If cerebral physiology speaks of annihilation when
the brain is destroyed, she speaks ignorantly and without a brief.
The greatest thinkers in the Natural Religion department of the new
philosophy seem then to be very much in the same position as those in
the same department of the old. For immortality there is a sublime
probability. With man, and man's advance in goodness and virtue as the
goal of creation, who shall say that the thing so long provided for,
the goal of creation, is likely to perish? Annihilation is a
hypothesis; immortality is a hypothesis. But immortality is the more
likely as well as the more beautiful of the two. We may believe in it,
not as a thing demonstrated, but as an act of faith that "God will not
put us to permanent intellectual confusion." [327]
But we may well ask whether it is wise and well to refuse to intrench
this probability behind another. Is it likely that He who has so much
care for us as to make us the goal of a drama a million times more
complex than our fathers dreamed of; who lets us see that He has not
removed us out of his sight; will leave Himself, and with Himself our
hopes, without witness in history? History is especially human; human
evidence the branch of moral science of which man is master--for man is
the best interpreter of man. The primary axiom of family, of social, of
legal, of moral life, is, that there is a kind and degree of human
evidence which we ought not to refuse; that if credulity is voracious
in belief, incredulity is no less voracious in negation; that if there
is a credulity which is simple, there is an incredulity which is
unreasonable and perilous. Is it then safe to grope for the keys of
death in darkness, and turn from the hand that holds them out; to face
the ugly realities of the pit with less consolation than is the portion
of our inheritance in the faith of Christ?
"The disciples," John tells us, "went away again unto their own home.
But Mary was standing without at the sepulchre weeping." [328] Weeping!
What else is possible while we are outside, while we stand--what else
until we stoop down from our proud grief to the sepulchre, humble our
speculative pride, and condescend to gaze at the death of Jesus face to
face? When we do so, we forget the hundred voices that tell us that the
Resurrection is partly invented, partly imagined, partly ideally true.
We may not see angels in white, nor hear their "why weepest thou?" But
assuredly we shall hear a sweeter voice, and a stronger than theirs;
and our name will be on it, and His name will rush to our lips in the
language most expressive to us--as Mary said unto Him in Hebrew, [329]
Rabboni. Then we shall find that the grey of morning is passing; that
the thin thread of scarlet upon the distant hills is deepening into
dawn; that in that world where Christ is the dominant law the ruling
principle is not natural selection which works through death, but
supernatural selection which works through life; that "because He
lives, we shall live also." [330]
With the reception of the witness of men then, and among them of such
men as the writer of the fourth Gospel, all follows. For Christ,
"Earth breaks up--time drops away;--
In flows Heaven with its new day
Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very Man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame, and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursëd tree;
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall--
But the true God all in all,
King of kings, and Lord of lords,
As His servant John received the words--
'I died, and live for evermore.'"
For us there comes the hope in Paradise--the connection with the living
dead--the pulsation through the isthmus of the Church, from sea to sea,
from us to them--the tears not without smiles as we think of the long
summer-day when Christ who is our life shall appear--the manifestation
of the sons of God, when "them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with
Him." Our resurrection shall be a fact of history, because His is a
fact of history; and we receive it as such--partly from the reasonable
motive of reasonable human belief on sufficient evidence for practical
conviction.
All the long chain of manifold witness to Christ is consummated and
crowned when it passes into the inner world of the individual life. "He
that believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in him," i.e., in
himself! [331] Correlative to this, stands a terrible truth. He of whom
we must conceive that he believes not God, [332] has made Him a
liar--nothing less, because his time for receiving Christ came and
went, and with this crisis his unbelief stands a completed present act
as the result of his past; [333] unbelief stretching over to the
completed witness of God concerning His Son; [334] --human unbelief
co-extensive with divine witness.
But that sweet witness in a man's self is not merely in books or
syllogisms. It is the creed of a living soul. It lies folded within a
man's heart, and never dies--part of the great principle of victory
[335] fought and won over again in each true life [336] --until the man
dies, and ceasing then only because he sees that which is the object of
its witness.
__________________________________________________________________
[314] The writer is entirely persuaded that St. John in chap. xx. 30,
31, refers to the Resurrection "signs," and not to miracles generally.
[315] Acts x. 41, 42. It is to be regretted that the R. V. has not
boldly given us such an arrangement of the words in this important
passage as would at once connect "made manifest" with "after He rose
again from the dead," and avoid making the Apostle state that the
chosen witnesses ate and drank with Christ after the Resurrection. St.
Peter mentions that particular characteristic of the Apostles which
made them judges not to be gainsayed of the identity of the Risen One
with Him with whom they used to eat and drink.
[316] John xiv. 19-21.
[317] Tis touto eiden? gune paroistros, kai ei tis allos ton ek tes
autes goeteias. Hote men episteito en somati pasin aniden (freely,
without restraint) ekerutten, hote de pistin an ischuran pareichen ek
nekron anastas heni mono gunaio kai tois heautou theasiotais (adepts,
initiated) krubden parephaineto ... echren eiper ontos theian dunamin
ekphenai ethelen ho Iesous autois tois epereasi kai to katadikasanti
kai holos pasin ophthenai. [Celsus, ap. Orig., 2, 55, 59, 70, 63.] The
passage is given in Rudolph Anger's invaluable Synopsis Evang. cum
locis qui supersunt parallelis litterarum et traditionum Evang. Irenæo.
antiquiorum. p. 254.
[318] gune paroistros, Celsus. "Moments sacrés ou la passion d'une
hallucinée donne au monde un Dieu ressuscité." Renan, Vie de Jesus,
434.
[319] "Post Resurrectionem ... Dominus quum dedisset sindonem servo
sacerdotis"--Evang. ad Heb.--Matt. xxvii. 59.--R. Anger, Synopsis
Evang., 288.
[320] Mark xvi. 8.
[321] Luke xxiv. 37.
[322] Luke xxiv. 41; John xx. 20.
[323] Ps. xxxiv. 15.
[324] John xxi. 12, cf. cf. 7.
[325] Matt. xxviii. 13.
[326] 1 Peter i. 3, 4; Apoc. i. 17, 18.
[327] See The Destiny of Man, viewed in the light of his origin, by
John Fiske, especially the three remarkable chapters pp. 96-119.
[328] John xx. 10, 11.
[329] The word Hebraisti had unfortunately dropped out of the T. R.
John xx. 16.
[330] John xiv. 19.
[331] en heauto, ver. 10.
[332] ho me pisteuon to Theo, Ibid.
[333] ou pepisteuken, Ibid..
[334] eis ten marturian hen memartureken ho Theos peri tou uiou autou.
Ibid..
[335] pan to gegennemenon ek tou Theou nika ton kosmon. ver. 4.
[336] With the neuter in ver. 4, contrast the individualising masculine
in ver. 5, tis estin ho nikon.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE XIV.
SIN UNTO DEATH.
"There is a sin unto death."--1 John v. 17.
The Church has ever spoken of seven deadly sins. Here is the ugly
catalogue. Pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, hatred, sloth.
Many of us pray often "from fornication and all other deadly sin, Good
Lord deliver us." This language rightly understood is sound and true;
yet, without careful thought, the term may lead us into two errors.
1. On hearing of deadly sin we are apt instinctively to oppose it to
venial. But we cannot define by any quantitative test what venial sin
may be for any given soul. To do that we must know the complete history
of each soul; and the complete genealogy, conception, birth, and
autobiography of each sin. Men catch at the term venial because they
love to minimise a thing so tremendous as sin. The world sides with the
casuists whom it satirises; and speaks of a "white lie," of a foible,
of an inaccuracy, when "the 'white lie' may be that of St. Peter, the
foible that of David, and the inaccuracy that of Ananias!"
2. There is a second mistake into which we often fall in speaking of
deadly sin. Our imagination nearly always assumes some one definite
outward act; some single individual sin. This may partly be due to a
seemingly slight mistranslation in the text. It should not run "there
is a sin," but "there is sin unto" (i.e., in the direction of, towards)
"death."
The text means something deeper and further-reaching than any single
sin, deadly though it may be justly called.
The author of the fourth Gospel learned a whole mystic language from
the life of Jesus. Death, in the great Master's vocabulary, was more
than a single action. It was again wholly different from bodily death
by the visitation of God. There are two realms for man's soul
co-extensive with the universe and with itself. One which leads towards
God is called Life; one which leads from Him is called Death. There is
a radiant passage by which the soul is translated from the death which
is death indeed, to the life which is life indeed. There is another
passage by which we pass from life to death; i.e., fall back towards
spiritual (which is not necessarily eternal) death.
There is then a general condition and contexture; there is an
atmosphere and position of soul in which the true life flickers, and is
on the way to death. One who visited an island on the coast of Scotland
has told how he found in a valley open to the spray of the north-west
ocean a clump of fir trees. For a time they grew well, until they
became high enough to catch the prevalent blast. They were still
standing, but had taken a fixed set, and were reddened as if singed by
the breath of fire. The island glen might be "swept on starry nights by
balms of spring;" the summer sun as it sank might touch the poor stems
with a momentary radiance. The trees were still living, but only with
that cortical vitality which is the tree's death in life. Their doom
was evident; they could have but a few more seasons. If the traveller
cared some years hence to visit that islet set in stormy waters, he
would find the firs blanched like a skeleton's bones. Nothing remained
for them but the sure fall, and the fated rottenness.
The analogy indeed is not complete. The tree in such surroundings must
die; it can make for itself no new condition of existence; it can hear
no sweet question on the breeze that washes through the grove, "why
will ye die?" It cannot look upward--as it is scourged by the driving
spray, and tormented by the fierce wind--and cry, "O God of my life,
give me life." It has no will; it cannot transplant itself. But the
human tree can root itself in a happier place. Some divine spring may
clothe it with green again. As it was passing from life toward death,
so by the grace of God in prayers and sacraments, through penitence and
faith, it may pass from death to life.
The Church then is not wrong when she speaks of "deadly sin." The
number seven is not merely a mystic fancy. But the seven "deadly sins"
are seven attributes of the whole character; seven master-ideas; seven
general conditions of a human soul alienated from God; seven forms of
aversion from true life, and of reversion to true death. The style of
St. John has often been called "senile;" it certainly has the oracular
and sententious quietude of old age in its almost lapidary repose. Yet
a terrible light sometimes leaps from its simple and stately lines. Are
there not a hundred hearts among us who know that as years pass they
are drifting further and further from Him who is the Life? Will they
not allow that St. John was right when, looking round the range of the
Church, he asserted that there is such a thing as "sin unto death?"
It may be useful to take that one of the seven deadly sins which people
are the most surprised to find in the list.
How and why is sloth deadly sin?
There is a distinction between sloth as vice and sloth as sin. The
deadly sin of sloth often exists where the vice has no place. The
sleepy music of Thomson's "Castle of Indolence" does not describe the
slumber of the spiritual sluggard. Spiritual sloth is want of care and
of love for all things in the spiritual order. Its conceptions are
shallow and hasty. For it the Church is a department of the civil
service; her worship and rites are submitted to, as one submits to a
minor surgical operation. Prayer is the waste of a few minutes daily in
concession to a sentiment which it might require trouble to eradicate.
For the slothful Christian, saints are incorrigibly stupid; martyrs
incorrigibly obstinate; clergymen incorrigibly professional;
missionaries incorrigibly restless; sisterhoods incorrigibly tender;
white lips that can just whisper Jesus incorrigibly awful. For the
slothful, God, Christ, death, judgment have no real significance. The
Atonement is a plank far away to be clutched by dying fingers in the
article of death, that we may gurgle out "yes," when asked "are you
happy"? Hell is an ugly word, Heaven a beautiful one which means a sky
or an Utopia. Apathy in all spiritual thought, languor in every work of
God, fear of injudicious and expensive zeal; secret dislike of those
whose fervour puts us to shame, and a miserable adroitness in keeping
out of their way; such are the signs of the spirit of sloth. And with
this a long series of sins of omission--"slumbering and sleeping while
the Bridegroom tarries"--"unprofitable servants."
We have said that the vice of sloth is generally distinct from the sin.
There is, however, one day of the week on which the sin is apt to wear
the drowsy features of the vice--Sunday. If there is any day on which
we might be supposed to do something towards the spiritual world it
must be Sunday. Yet what have any of us done for God on any Sunday?
Probably we can scarcely tell. We slept late, we lingered over our
dressing, we never thought of Holy Communion; after Church (if we went
there) we loitered with friends; we lounged in the Park; we whiled away
an hour at lunch; we turned over a novel, with secret dislike of the
benevolent arrangements which give the postman some rest. Such have
been in the main our past Sundays. Such will be those which remain,
more or fewer, till the arrival of a date written in a calendar which
eye hath not seen. The last evening of the closing year is called by an
old poet, "the twilight of two years, nor past, nor next." What shall
we call the last Sunday of our year of life?
Turn to the first chapter of St. Mark. Think of that day of our Lord's
ministry which is recorded more fully than any other. What a day! First
that teaching in the Synagogue, when men "were astonished," not at His
volubility, but at His "doctrine," drawn from depths of thought. Then
the awful meeting with the powers of the world unseen. Next the
utterance of the words in the sick room which renovated the fevered
frame. Afterwards an interval for the simple festival of home. And then
we see the sin, the sorrow, the sufferings crowded at the door. A few
hours more, while yet there is but the pale dawn before the meteor
sunrise of Syria, He rises from sleep to plunge His wearied brow in the
dews of prayer. And finally the intrusion of others upon that sacred
solitude, and the work of preaching, helping, pitying, healing closes
in upon Him again with a circle which is of steel, because it is
duty--of delight, because it is love. O the divine monotony of one of
those golden days of God upon earth! And yet we are offended because He
who is the same for ever, sends from heaven that message with its
terrible plainness--"because thou art lukewarm, I will spue thee out of
my mouth." We are angry that the Church classes sloth as deadly sin,
when the Church's Master has said--"thou wicked and slothful servant."
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE XV.
THE TERRIBLE TRUISM WHICH HAS NO EXCEPTION.
"All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death."-- 1
John v. 17.
Let us begin by detaching awhile from its context this oracular
utterance: "all unrighteousness is sin." Is this true universally, or
is it not?
A clear consistent answer is necessary, because a strange form of the
doctrine of indulgences (long whispered in the ears) has lately been
proclaimed from the housetops, with a considerable measure of apparent
acceptance.
Here is the singular dispensation from St. John's rigorous canon to
which we refer.
Three such indulgences have been accorded at various times to certain
favoured classes or persons. (1) "The moral law does not exist for the
elect." This was the doctrine of certain Gnostics in St. John's day; of
certain fanatics in every age. (2) "Things absolutely forbidden to the
mass of mankind, are allowable for people of commanding rank."
Accommodating Prelates, and accommodating Reformers have left the
burden of defending these ignoble concessions to future generations.
(3) A yet baser dispensation has been freely given by very vulgar
casuists. "The chosen of Fortune"--the men at whose magic touch every
stock seems to rise--may be allowed unusual forms of enjoying the
unusual success which has crowned their career.
Such are, or such were, the dispensations from St. John's canon
permitted to themselves, or to others, by the elect of Heaven, by the
elect of station, and by the elect of fortune.
Another election hath obtained the perilous exception now--the election
of genius. Those who endow the world with music, with art, with
romance, with poetry, are entitled to the reversion. "All
unrighteousness is sin"--except for them. (1) The indulgence is no
longer valid for those who affect intimacy with heaven (partly perhaps
because it is suspected that there is no heaven to be intimate with).
(2) The indulgence is not extended to the men who apparently rule over
nations, since it has been discovered that nations rule over them. (3)
It is not accorded to the constructors of fortunes; they are too many,
and too uninteresting, though possibly figures could be conceived
almost capable of buying it. But (generally speaking) men of these
three classes must pace along the dust of the narrow road by the
signpost of the law, if they would escape the censure of society.
For genius alone there is no such inconvenient restriction. Many men,
of course, deliberately prefer the "primrose path," but they can no
more avoid indignant hisses by the way than they can extinguish the
"everlasting bonfire" at the awful close of their journey. With the man
of genius it seems that it is otherwise. He shall "walk in the ways of
his heart, and in the sight of his eyes;" but, "for all these things"
the tribunals of certain schools of a delicate criticism (delicate
criticism can be so indelicate!) will never allow him "to be brought
into judgment." Some literary oracles, biographers, or reviewers, are
not content to keep a reverential silence, and to murmur a secret
prayer. They will drag into light the saddest, the meanest, the most
selfish doings of genius. Not the least service to his generation, and
to English literature, of the true poet and critic lately taken from
us, [337] was the superb scorn, the exquisite wit, with which his
indignant purity transfixed such doctrines. A strange winged thing, no
doubt, genius sometimes is; alternately beating the abyss with splendid
pinions, and eating dust which is the "serpent's meat." But for all
that, we cannot see with the critic when he tries to prove that the
reptile's crawling is part of the angel's flight; and the dust on which
he grovels one with the infinite purity of the azure distances.
The arguments of the apologists for moral eccentricity of genius may be
thus summed up:--The man of genius bestows upon humanity gifts which
are on a different line from any other. He enriches it on the side
where it is poorest; the side of the Ideal. But the very temperament in
virtue of which a man is capable of such transcendent work makes him
passionate and capricious. To be imaginative is to be exceptional; and
these exceptional beings live for mankind rather than for themselves.
When their conduct comes to be discussed, the only question is whether
that conduct was adapted to forward the superb self-development which
is of such inestimable value to the world. If the gratification of any
desire was necessary for that self-development, genius itself being the
judge, the cause is ended. In winning that gratification hearts may be
broken, souls defiled, lives wrecked. The daintiest songs of the man of
genius may rise to the accompaniment of domestic sobs, and the music
which he seems to warble at the gates of heaven may be trilled over the
white upturned face of one who has died in misery. What matter!
Morality is so icy, and so intolerant; its doctrines have the
ungentlemanlike rigour of the Athanasian Creed. Genius breaks hearts
with such supreme gracefulness, such perfect wit, that they are arrant
Philistines who refuse to smile.
We who have the text full in our mind answer all this in the words of
the old man of Ephesus. For all that angel-softness which he learned
from the heart of Christ, his voice is as strong as it is sweet and
calm. Over all the storm of passion, over all the babble of successive
sophistries, clear and eternal it rings out--"all unrighteousness is
sin." To which the apologist, little abashed, replies--"of course we
all know that--quite true as a general rule, but then men of genius
have bought a splendid dispensation by paying a splendid price, and so
their inconsistencies are not sin."
There are two assumptions at the root of this apology for the
aberrations of genius which should be examined. (1) The temperament of
men of genius is held to constitute an excuse from which there is no
appeal. Such men indeed are sometimes not slow to put forward this plea
for themselves. No doubt there are trials peculiar to every
temperament. Those of men of genius are probably very great. They are
children of the sunshine and of the storm; the grey monotony of
ordinary life is distasteful to them. Things which others find it easy
to accept convulse their sensitive organisation. Many can produce their
finest works only on condition of being sheltered where no bills shall
find their way by the post; where no sound, not even the crowing of
cocks, shall break the haunted silence. If the letter comes in one
case, and if the cock crows in the other, the first may possibly never
be remembered, but the second is never forgotten.
For this, as for every other form of human temperament--that of the
dunce, as well as of the genius--allowance must in truth be made. In
that one of the lives of the English Poets, where the great moralist
has gone nearest to making concessions to this fallacy of temperament,
he utters this just warning. "No wise man will easily presume to say,
had I been in Savage's condition I should have lived better than
Savage." But we must not bring in the temperament of the man of genius
as the standard of his conduct unless we are prepared to admit the same
standard in every other case. God is no respecter of persons. For each,
conscience is of the same texture, law of the same material. As all
have the same cross of infinite mercy, the same judgment of perfect
impartiality, so have they the same law of inexorable duty.
(2) The necessary disorder and feverishness of high literary and
artistic inspiration is a second postulate of the pleas to which I
refer. But, is it true that disorder creates inspiration; or is a
condition of it?
All great work is ordered work; and in producing it the faculties must
be exercised harmoniously and with order. True inspiration, therefore,
should not be caricatured into a flushed and dishevelled thing. Labour
always precedes it. It has been prepared for by education. And that
education would have been painful but for the glorious efflorescence of
materials collected and assimilated, which is the compensation for any
toil. The very dissatisfaction with its own performances, the result of
the lofty ideal which is inseparable from genius, is at once a stimulus
and a balm. The man of genius apparently writes, or paints, as the
birds sing, or as the spring colours the flowers; but his subject has
long possessed his mind, and the inspiration is the child of thought
and of ordered labour. Destroying the peace of one's own family or of
another's, being flushed with the preoccupation of guilty passion, will
not accelerate, but retard the advent of those happy moments which are
not without reason called creative. Thus, the inspiration of genius is
akin to the inspiration of prophecy. The prophet tutored himself by a
fitting education. He became assimilated to the noble things in the
future which he foresaw. Isaiah's heart grew royal; his style wore the
majesty of a king, before he sang the King of sorrow with His infinite
pathos, and the King of righteousness with His infinite glory. Many
prophets attuned their spirits by listening to such music as lulls, not
inflames passion. Others walked where "beauty born of murmuring sound"
might pass into their strain. Think of Ezekiel by the river of Chebar,
with the soft sweep of waters in his ear, and their cool breath upon
his cheek. Think of St. John with the shaft of light from heaven's
opened door upon his upturned brow, and the boom of the Ægean upon the
rocks of Patmos around him. "The note of the heathen seer" (said the
greatest preacher of the Greek Church) "is to be contorted,
constrained, excited, like a maniac; the note of a prophet is to be
wakeful, self-possessed, nobly self-conscious." [338] We may apply this
test to the distinction between genius, and the dissipated affectation
of genius.
Let us then refuse our assent to a doctrine of indulgences applied to
genius on the ground of temperament or of literary and artistic
inspiration. "Why," we are often asked, "why force your narrow judgment
upon an angry or a laughing world?" What have you to do with the
conduct of gifted men? Genius means exuberance. Why "blame the Niagara
River" because it will not assume the pace and manner of "a Dutch
canal"? Never indeed should we force that judgment upon any, unless
they force it upon us. Let us avoid as far as we may posthumous gossip
over the grave of genius. It is an unwholesome curiosity which rewards
the blackbird for that bubbling song of ecstasy in the thicket, by
gloating upon the ugly worm which he swallows greedily after the
shower. The pen or pencil has dropped from the cold fingers. After all
its thought and sin, after all its toil and agony, the soul is with its
Judge. Let the painter of the lovely picture, the writer of the
deathless words, be for us like the priest. The washing of regeneration
is no less wrought through the unworthy minister; the precious gift is
no less conveyed when a polluted hand has broken the bread and blessed
the cup. But if we are forced to speak, let us refuse to accept an ex
post facto morality invented to excuse a worthless absolution.
Especially so when the most sacred of all rights is concerned. It is
not enough to say that a man of genius dissents from the received
standard of conduct. He cannot make fugitive inclination the only
principle of a connection which he promised to recognise as paramount.
A passage in the Psalms, [339] has been called "The catechism of
Heaven." "The catechism of Fame" differs from "the catechism of
Heaven." "Who shall ascend unto the hill of Fame?" "He that possesses
genius." "Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord?" "He that hath
clean hands, and a pure heart; He that hath sworn to his neighbour and
disappointeth him not" (or disappointeth her not) "though it were to
his own hindrance"--aye, to the hindrance of his self-development.
Strange that the rough Hebrew should still have to teach us chivalry as
well as religion! In St. John's Epistle we find the two great axioms
about sin, in its two essential aspects. "Sin is the transgression of
the law:" there is its aspect chiefly Godward. "All unrighteousness"
(mainly injustice, denial of the rights of others) "is sin:" there is
its aspect chiefly manward.
Yes, the principle of the text is rigid, inexorable, eternal. Nothing
can make its way out of those terrible meshes. It is without favour,
without exception. It gives no dispensation, and proclaims no
indulgences, to the man of genius, or to any other. If it were
otherwise, the righteous God, the Author of creation and redemption,
would be dethroned. And that is a graver thing than to dethrone even
the author of "Queen Mab," and of "The Epipsychidion." Here is the
jurisprudence of the "great white Throne" summed up in four words: "all
unrighteousness is sin."
So far, in the last discourse, and in this, we have ventured to isolate
these two great principles from their context. But this process is
always attended with peculiar loss in St. John's writings. And as some
may think perhaps that the promise [340] just succeeding is falsified
we must here run the risk of bringing in another thread of thought. Yet
indeed the whole paragraph [341] has its source in an intense faith in
the efficacy of prayer, specially as exercised in intercessory prayer.
(1) The efficacy of prayer. [342] This is the very sign of contrast
with, of opposition to, the modern spirit, which is the negation of
prayer.
What is the real value of prayer?
Very little, says the modern spirit. Prayer is the stimulant, the Dutch
courage of the moral world. Prayer is a power, not because it is
efficacious, but because it is believed to be so.
A modern Rabbi, with nothing of his Judaism left but a rabid antipathy
to the Founder of the Church, guided by Spinoza and Kant, has turned
fiercely upon the Lord's prayer. [343] He takes those petitions which
stand alone among the liturgies of earth in being capable of being
translated into every language. He cuts off one pearl after another
from the string. Let us look at two specimens. "Our Father which art in
Heaven." Heaven! the very name has a breath of magic, a suggestion of
beauty, of grandeur, of purity in it. It moves us as nothing else can.
We instinctively lift our heads; the brow grows proud of that splendid
home, and the eye is wetted with a tear and lighted with a ray, as it
looks into those depths of golden sunset which are full for the young
of the radiant mystery of life, for the old of the pathetic mystery of
death. [344] Yes, but for modern science Heaven means air, or
atmosphere, and the address itself is contradictory. "Forgive us." But
surely the guilt cannot be forgiven, except by the person against whom
it is committed. There is no other forgiveness. A mother (whose
daughter went out upon the cruel London streets) carried into execution
a thought bestowed upon her by the inexhaustible ingenuity of love. The
poor woman got her own photograph taken, and a friend managed to have
copies of it hung in several halls and haunts of infamy with these
words clearly written below--"come home, I forgive you." The tender
subtlety of love was successful at last; and the poor haggard outcast's
face was touched by her mother's lips. "But the heart of God," says
this enemy of prayer, "is not as a woman's heart." (Pardon the words, O
loving Father! Thou who hast said "Yea, she may forget, yet will I not
forget thee." Pardon, O pierced Human Love! who hast graven the name of
every soul on the palms of Thy hands with the nails of the
crucifixion.) Repentance subjectively seems a reality when mother and
child meet with a burst of passionate tears, and the polluted brow
feels purified by their molten downfall; but repentance objectively is
seen to be an absurdity by every one who grasps the conception of law.
The penitential Psalms may be the lyrics of repentance, the Gospel for
the third Sunday after Trinity its idyll, the cross its symbol, the
wounds of Christ its theology and inspiration. But the course of
Nature, the hard logic of life is its refutation--the flames that burn,
the waves that drown, the machine that crushes, the society that
condemns, and that neither can, nor will forgive.
Enough, and more than enough of this. The monster of ignorance who has
never learnt a prayer, has hitherto been looked upon as one of the
saddest of sights. But there is something sadder--the monster of
over-cultivation, the wreck of schools, the priggish fanatic of
godlessness. Alas! for the nature which has become like a plant
artificially trained and twisted to turn away from the light. Alas! for
the heart which has hardened itself into stone until it cannot beat
faster, or soar higher, even when men are saying with happy enthusiasm,
or when the organ is lifting upward to the heaven of heavens the cry
which is at once the creed of an everlasting dogma and the hymn of a
triumphant hope--"with Thee is the well of Life, and in Thy light shall
we see light." Now having heard the answer of the modern spirit to the
question "what is the real value of prayer?" think of the answer of the
spirit of the Church as given by St. John in this paragraph. That
answer is not drawn out in a syllogism. St. John appeals to our
consciousness of a divine life. "That ye may know that ye have eternal
life." This knowledge issues in confidence, i.e., literally the sweet
possibility of saying out all to God. And this confidence is never
disappointed for any believing child of God. "If we know that He hear
us, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." [345]
On the 16th verse we need only say, that the greatness of our brother's
spiritual need does not cease to be a title to our sympathy. St. John
is not speaking of all requests, but of the fulness of brotherly
intercession.
__________________________________________________________________
One question and one warning in conclusion; and that question is this.
Do we take part in this great ministry of love? Is our voice heard in
the full music of the prayers of intercession that are ever going up to
the Throne, and bringing down the gift of life? Do we pray for others?
In one sense all who know true affection and the sweetness of true
prayer do pray for others. We have never loved with supreme affection
any for whom we have not interceded, whose names we have not baptized
in the fountain of prayer. Prayer takes up a tablet from the hand of
love written over with names; that tablet death itself can only break
when the heart has turned Sadducee.
Jesus (we sometimes think) gives one strange proof of the love which
yet passeth knowledge. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and
Lazarus;" "when He had heard therefore" [O that strange therefore!]
"that Lazarus was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where
He was." Ah! sometimes not two days, but two years, and sometimes
evermore, He seems to remain. When the income dwindles with the
dwindling span of life; when the best beloved must leave us for many
years, and carries away our sunshine with him; when the life of a
husband is in danger--then we pray; "O Father, for Jesu's sake spare
that precious life; enable me to provide for these helpless ones; bless
these children in their going out and coming in, and let me see them
once again before the night cometh, and my hands are folded for the
long rest." Yes, but have we prayed at our Communion "because of that
Holy Sacrament in it, and with it," that He would give them the grace
which they need--the life which shall save them from sin unto death?
Round us, close to us in our homes, there are cold hands, hearts that
beat feebly. Let us fulfil St. John's teaching, by praying to Him who
is the life that He would chafe those cold hands with His hand of love,
and quicken those dying hearts by contact with that wounded heart which
is a heart of fire.
NOTES
Ch. v. 3-17.
Ver. 3. This section should begin with the words "And His commandments
are not heavy"--and should not be separated from what follows, because
they give one reason of the victory whereof he proceeds to speak. "His
commandments are not heavy, for all that is born of God conquereth the
world." What a picture of the sweetness of a life of service! What a
gentle smile must have been on the old man's face as he said, "His
commandments are not grievous!"
Vers. 7, 8. This passage with its apparent obscurity, and famous
interpolation, demands some additional notice. As to criticism and
interpretation.
(1) Critically. Since the publication of J. J. Griesbach's celebrated
work (Diatribe in locum 1 John v. 7, 8, Tom. ii., N.T. Halle: 1806),
first German, and latterly English, opinion has become absolutely
unanimous in agreeing with Griesbach that "the words included between
brackets are spurious, and should therefore be eliminated from the
Sacred Text." Even the famous Roman Catholic scholar, Scholts, in his
great critical edition of the New Testament, in two volumes (Bonn:
1836), boldly dropped the disputed passage from the text. The
interpolated passage has certainly no support in any uncial manuscript,
or ancient version, or Greek Father of the four first centuries. (2) As
to interpretation, the faith has lost nothing by the honesty of her
wisest defenders. The whole of the genuine passage is intensely
Trinitarian. The interpolation is nothing but an exposition written
into the text. The three genuine witnesses do really point to the Three
Witnesses in Heaven. Bengel's saying expresses the permanent feeling of
Christendom, which no criticism can do away with: "This trine array of
witnesses on earth is supported by, and has above and beneath it the
Trinity, which is Heavenly, archetypal, fundamental, everlasting." The
whole context recognizes three special works of the Three Persons of
the Blessed Trinity. "This is the witness of God," i.e. of the Father
(ver. 9); "this is He that came by water and blood," i.e. the Son (ver.
6); "it is the Spirit that witnesseth," i.e. the Holy Ghost (ibid.).
A fuller examination of this passage, from a polemical point of view,
will be found in the third of the introductory discourses. It will be
well, however, to indicate here the immediate controversial reference
in the Spirit, the water, and the blood. There is abundant proof that
the popular heretical philosophy of Asia Minor struck Christianity
precisely in three vital places. It denied--
(1) The Incarnation--consequently
(2) The Redemption--consequently
(3) The Sacraments.
But the mention of the water and the blood in connection with the
Person of the Son Incarnate and Crucified established exactly these
three points. Narrated as it was by an eye-witness, it established:--
(1) The reality of the Incarnation--consequently
(2) The reality of Redemption--for the blood of Jesus cleanses from all
sin (1 John i. 7)--consequently
(3) The reality of Sacraments.
We have articulate evidence of the denial of the two sacraments by the
Docetic idealists of Asia Minor. The Philosophumena tells us of the
view of baptism held by one of their principal sects. "According to
them the promise of the laver of regeneration is nothing more than the
introduction into the 'unfading pleasure' of him that is washed (as
they say) with living water, and anointed with 'chrism that speaketh
not.'" [346] The testimony of Ignatius is express as to the other
sacrament. "From Eucharist and prayer they abstain on account of not
confessing that the Eucharist is flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ
which suffered for our sins." ["Water and blood" should be noted in
Heb. ix. 19. Water is not mentioned in Exod. xxiv. 6.]--(Ep. ad Smyrn.
vii.)
__________________________________________________________________
[337] Mr. Matthew Arnold.
[338] This is true as a general rule; but there were exceptions.
[339] See Ps. xv. Cf. Ps. xxiv. 3-7.
[340] 1 John v. 15.
[341] 1 John v. 14, 18.
[342] Vv. 14, 15.
[343] Historical and Critical Commentary on Leviticus. By M. M.
Kalisch. Part 1. Theology of the Past and Future, 431, 438.
[344] This is denied by De Wette (Ueber die Religion, Vorlesungen,
106).
[345] The form of expression indicates not necessarily the very things
asked, but the spiritual essence and substance.
[346] He gar epangelia tou loutrou ouk alle tis esti kat' autous, he to
eisagagein eis ten amaranton hedonen ton louomenon kat' autous zont
hudati kai chriomenon alalo chrismati.--(Philosoph., p. 140, de
Naassenis.)
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION X.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Oidamen hoti pas ho gegennemenos ek tou Theou ouch hamartanei, all' ho
gennetheis ek tou Theou terei auton, kai ho poneros ouch haptetai
autou. oidamen hoti ek tou Theou esmen, kai ho kosmos holos en to
ponero keitai. oidamen de hoti ho uios tou Theou hekei, kai dedoken
hemin dianoian, hina ginoskomen ton alethinon; kai esmen en to
alethino, en to uio autou Iesou Christo. outos estin ho alethinos Theos
kai he zoe aionios. Teknia, phulaxate heautous apo ton eidolon. amen.
Scimus quoniam omnis qui natus est ex Deo non peccat, sed generatio Dei
conservat eum et malignus non tangit eum. Scimus quoniam ex Deo sumus
et mundus totus in maligno positus est. Et scimus quoniam Filius Dei
venit, et dedit nobis sensum ut cognoscamus verum Deum et simus in
vero, Filio eius; hic est verus et vita æterna. Filioli custodite vos a
simulachris.
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is
begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.
And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in
wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us
an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him
that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and
eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not; but He that was
begotten of God keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not. We know
that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one. And we
know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding
that we know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in
His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little
children, guard yourselves from idols.
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not: but the Begotten of
God keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not.
We know that we are from God and the world lieth wholly in the evil
one.
We know moreover that the Son of God hath come and is here, and hath
given us understanding that we know Him that is the Very God: and in
His Son Jesus Christ (this is the Very God and eternal life), we are in
the Very (God). Children, guard yourselves from the idols.
NOTES.
Ch. v. 18-21.
Ver. 18, 19, 20. Three seals are affixed to the close of this
Epistle--three postulates of the spiritual reason; three primary canons
of spiritual perception and knowledge. Each is marked by the emphatic
"we know," which is stamped at the opening its first line. The first
"we know," is of a sense of purity made possible to the Christian
through the keeping by Him Who is the one Begotten of God. The evil one
cannot touch him with the contaminating touch which implies connection.
The second "we know" involves a sense of privilege; the true conviction
that by God's power, and love, we are brought into a sphere of light,
out of the darkness in which a sinful world has become as if cradled on
the lap of the evil one. The third "we know" is the deep consciousness
of the very Presence of the Son of God in and with His Church. And with
this comes all the inner life--supremely a new way of looking at
things, a new possibility of thought, a new cast of thought and
sentiment, "understanding" (dianoia). Words denoting intellectual
faculties and processes are rare in St. John. This word is used in the
sense just given in Plat., Rep., 511, and Arist., Poet., vi. (in the
last, however, rather of the sentiment of the piece than of the
author), "He hath given us understanding that we know continuously the
very [God]." And in "His Son Jesus Christ [this is the very God and
eternal life] we are in the very God." This interpretation of the
passage is supported by the position of the pronoun which cannot be
referred naturally to any subject but Jesus Christ. Waterland quotes
Irenæus. "No man can know God unless God has taught him; that is to
say, that without God, God cannot be known." [347]
Ver. 21. The Epistle closes with a short, sternly affectionate
exhortation. "Children, guard yourselves" (the aorist imperative of
immediate final decision) "from the idols." These words are natural in
the atmosphere of Ephesus (Acts xix. 26, 27). The Author of the
Apocalypse has a like hatred of idols. (Apoc. ii. 14, 15, ix. 20, xx.
1-8, xxii. 15.)
It would appear that the Gnostics allowed people to eat freely things
sacrificed to idols. Modern, like ancient unbelief, has sometimes
attributed to St. John a determination to exalt the Master whom he knew
to be a man to an equality with God. But this is morally inconsistent
with the Apostle's unaffected shrinking from idolatry in every form.
(See Speaker's Commentary, N. T., iv., 347).
__________________________________________________________________
[347] Moyer Lecture, vi.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
__________________________________________________________________
II. EPISTLE.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
O presbuteros eklekte kuria kai tois teknois autes, ous ego agapo en
aletheia, kai ouk ego monos alla kai pantes oi egnokotes ten aletheian,
dia ten aletheian ten menousan en hemin, kai meth' hemon estai eis ton
aiona. estai meth' hemon charis, eleos, eirene, para Theou patros kai
para Kuriou Iesou Christou tou uiou tou patros, en aletheia kai agape.
Echaren lian hoti eureka ek ton teknon sou peripatountas en aletheia,
kathos entolen elabomen para tou patros. kai nun eroto se, kuria, ouch
hos entolen graphon soi kainen, alla hen eichomen ap' arches, hina
agapomen allelous. kai aute estin he agape, hina peripatomen kata tas
entolas autou. aute estin he entole, kathos ekousate ap' arches, hina
en aute peripatete; hoti polloi planoi eiselthon eis ton kosmon, oi me
homologountes Iesoun Christon erchomenon en sarki; outos estin ho
planos kai ho antichristos; blepete heautous, hina me apolesomen a
eirgasametha, alla misthon plere apolabomen. pas ho parabainon kai me
menon en te didache tou Christou Theon ouk echei; ho menon en te
didache outos kai ton patera kai ton uion echei. ei tis erchetai pros
humas kai tauten ten didachen ou pherei, me lambanete auton eis oikian,
kai chairein auto me legete; ho gar legon auto chairein koinonei tois
ergois autou tois ponerois. Polla echon humin graphein ouk eboulethen
dia chartou kai melanos; alla elpizo elthein pros humas kai stoma pros
stoma lalesai, hina he chara hemon e pepleromene. Aspazetai se ta tekna
tes adelphes sou tes eklektes. amen.
Senior electæ dominæ et natis eius, quos ego diligo in veritate, et non
ego solus sed et omnes qui cognoverunt veritatem, propter veritatem quæ
permanet in nobis et nobis cum erit in æternum. Sit nobiscum gratia
misericordia pax a Deo Patre et Christo Iesu Filio Patris in veritate
et caritate. Gavisus sum valde quoniam inveni de filii tuis ambulantes
in veritate sicut mandatum accepimus a Patre. Et nunc rogo te, domina,
non tamquam mandatum novum scribens tibi, sed quod habuimus ab initio,
ut diligamus alterutrum. Et hæc est caritas, ut ambulemus secundum
mandata eius. Hoc mandatum est ut quemadmodum audistis ab initio in eo
ambuletis. Quoniam multi seductores exierunt in mundum qui non
confitentur Iesum Christum venientem in carne. Hic est seductor et
antichristus. Videte vosmet ipsos, ne perdatis quæ operati estis, sed
ut mercedam plenum accipiatis. Omnis qui præcedit et non manet in
doctrina Christi, Deum non habet: qui permanet in doctrina, hic et
Filium et Patrem habet. Si quis venit ad vos, et hanc doctrinam non
adfert, nolite recipere eum in domumnec ave ei dixeritis: qui enim
dicit illi ave, communicat operibus illius malignis. Plura habens vobis
scribere, nolui per cartam et atramentum: spero enim me futurum apud
vos et os ad os loqui, ut gaudium vestrum sit plenum. Salutant te filii
sororis tuæ electæ.
The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the
truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth; for
the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever.
Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. I rejoiced
greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have
received a commandment from the Father. And now I beseech thee, lady,
not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we
had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love,
that we walk after His commandments. This is the commandment, That, as
ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. For many
deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to
yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but
that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not
in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the
doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come
any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your
house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is
partaker of his evil deeds. Having many things to write unto you, I
would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and
speak face to face, that our joy may be full. The children of thy elect
sister greet thee. Amen.
The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth;
and not I only, but also all they that know the truth; for the truth's
sake which abideth in us, and it shall be with us for ever: Grace,
mercy, peace shall be with us, from God the Father, and from Jesus
Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. I rejoice greatly
that I have found certain of thy children walking in truth, even as we
received commandment from the Father. And now I beseech thee, lady, not
as though I wrote to thee a new commandment, but that which we had from
the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we
should walk after His commandments. This is the commandment, even as ye
heard from the beginning, that ye should walk in it. For many deceivers
are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus
Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.
Look to yourselves, that ye lose not the things which we have wrought,
but that ye receive a full reward. Whosoever goeth onward and abideth
not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the
teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son. If any one cometh
unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not into your
house, and give him no greeting: for he that giveth him greeting
partaketh in his evil works. Having many things to write unto you, I
would not write them with paper and ink: but I hope to come unto you,
and to speak face to face, that your joy may be fulfilled. The children
of thine elect sister salute thee.
The Elder unto the excellent Kyria and her children whom I love in
truth, (and not I only, but also all they that know the truth) for the
truth's sake which abideth in us--yea, and with us it shall be for
ever. There shall be with you grace, mercy, peace from God the Father,
and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, in truth and love. I was
exceeding glad that I found of thy children walking in truth even as we
received commandment from the Father. And now I beseech thee Kyria, not
as though writing a fresh commandment unto thee, but that which we had
from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is the love,
that we should walk according to His commandments. This is the
commandment as ye heard from the beginning that ye should walk in it.
For many deceivers are gone out into the world, even they who are not
confessing Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. This the deceiver, and the
antichrist. Look to yourselves that ye lose not the things which ye
have worked, but that ye receive reward in full. Every one leading
forward and not abiding in the doctrine which is Christ's hath not God:
he that abideth in the doctrine, the same hath both the Son and the
Father. If there come unto you any and bringeth not the doctrine,
receive him not into your house, and no good speed wish him. For he
that wisheth him good speed partaketh in his works which are evil.
Having many things to write unto you I would not write with paper and
ink, but I hope to be with you and to speak face to face, that our joy
may be fulfilled. The children of thine elect sister greet thee.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE XVI.
THEOLOGY AND LIFE IN KYRIA'S LETTER.
"The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the
truth ... Grace be with you, mercy and peace, from God the Father
and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and
love."--2 John 3.
Of old God addressed men in tones that, were so to speak, distant.
Sometimes He spoke with the stern precision of law or ritual; sometimes
in the dark and lofty utterances of prophets; sometimes through the
subtle voices of history, which lend themselves to different
interpretations. But in the New Testament He whom no man hath seen at
any time, "interpreted," [348] Himself with a sweet familiarity. It is
of a piece with the dispensation of condescension, that the mysteries
of the kingdom of heaven should come to us in such large measure
through epistles. For a letter is just the result of taking up one's
pen to converse with one who is absent, a familiar talk with a friend.
Of the epistles in our New Testament, a few are addressed to
individuals. The effect of three of these letters upon the Church, and
even upon the world, has been great. The Epistles to Timothy and Titus,
according to the most prevalent interpretation of them, have been felt
in the outward organization of the Church. The Epistle to Philemon,
with its eager tenderness, its softness as of a woman's heart, its
chivalrous courtesy, has told in another direction. With all its
freedom from the rashness of social revolution; its almost painful
abstinence (as abolitionists have sometimes confessed to feeling) from
actual invective against slavery in the abstract; that letter is yet
pervaded by thoughts whose issue can only be worked out by the liberty
of the slave. The word emancipation may not be pronounced, but it
hovers upon the Apostle's lips.
The second Epistle is, in our judgment, a letter to an individual.
Certainly we are unable to find in its whole contents any probable
allusion to a Church personified as a lady. [349] It is, as we read it,
addressed to Kyria, an Ephesian lady, or one who lived in the circle of
Ephesian influence. It was sent by the Apostle during an absence from
Ephesus. That absence might have been for the purpose of one of the
visitations of the Churches of Asia Minor, which (as we are told by
ancient Church writers) the Apostle was in the habit of holding.
Possibly, however, in the case of a writer so brief and so reserved in
the expression of personal sentiment as St. John, the gush and sunshine
of anticipated joy at the close of this note might tempt us to think of
a rift in some sky that had been long darkened; of the close of some
protracted separation, soon to be forgotten in a happy meeting. "Having
many things to write unto you, I would not do so by means of paper and
ink; but I hope to come unto you, and to speak face to face that our
joy may be fulfilled." [350] The expression might not seem unsuitable
for a return from exile. Several touches of language and feeling in the
latter point to the conclusion that Kyria was a widow. There is no
mention of her husband, the father of her children. In the case of a
writer who uses the names of God with such subtle and tender
suitability, the association of Kyria's "children walking in truth"
with "even as we received commandment from the Father," may well point
to Him who was for them the Father of the fatherless. We need not with
some expositors draw the sad conclusion that St. John affectionately
hints that there were others of the family who could not be included in
this joyful message. But it would seem highly probable from the
language used that there were several sons, and also that Kyria had no
daughters. Over these sons who had lost one earthly parent, the Apostle
rejoices with the heart of a father in God. He bursts out with his
eureka, the eureka not of a philosopher, but of a saint. "I rejoiced
exceedingly that I found [351] certain of the number of thy children
walking in truth."
While we may not trace in this little Epistle the same fountain of
wide-spreading influence as in others to which we have referred; while
we feel that, like its author, its work is deep and silent rather than
commanding, reflection will also lead us to the conclusion that it is
worthy of the Apostle who was looked upon as one of the "pillars" of
the faith. [352]
1. Let us reflect that this letter is addressed by the aged Apostle to
a widow, and concerns her family.
It is significant that Kyria was, in all probability, a widow of
Ephesus.
Too many of us have more or less acquaintance with one department of
French literature. A Parisian widow is too often the questionable
heroine of some shameful romance, to have read which is enough to taint
the virginity of the young imagination. Ephesus was the Paris of Ionia.
Petronius was the Daudet or Zola of his day. An Ephesian widow is the
heroine of one of the most cynically corrupt of his stories.
But "where sin abounded, grace did more than abound." Strange that
first in an epistle to a Bishop of the Church of Ephesus, St. Paul
should have presented us with that picture of a Christian widow--"she
that is a widow, indeed, and desolate, who hath her hope set on God,
and continueth in prayer night and day"--yet who, if she has the
devotion, the almost entire absorption in God, of Anna, the daughter of
Phanuel, [353] leaves upon the track of her daily road to heaven the
trophies of Dorcas--"having brought up children well, used hospitality
to strangers, washed the saints' feet, relieved the afflicted,
diligently followed every good work." [354] Such widows are the leaders
of the long procession of women, veiled or unveiled, with vows or
without them, who have ministered to Jesus through the ages. Christ has
a beautiful art of turning the affliction of His daughters into the
consolation of suffering. When life's fairest hopes are disappointed by
falsehood, by cruel circumstances, by death; the broken heart is
soothed by the love of Christ, the only love which is proof against
death and change. The consolation thus received is the most unselfish
of gifts. It overflows, and is lavishly poured out upon the sick and
weary. With St. Paul's picture of a widow of this kind, contrast
another by the same hand which hangs close beside it. The younger
Ephesian widow, such as Petronius described, was known by St. Paul
also. If any count the Apostle as a fanatic, destitute of all knowledge
of the world because he lived above it, let them look at those lines,
which are full of such caustic power, as they hit on the
characteristics of certain idle and wanton affecters of a sorrow which
they never felt. [355] What a distance between such widows and Kyria,
"beloved for the truth's sake which abideth in us!" [356]
But the short letter of St. John is addressed to Kyria's family as well
as to herself. "The elder to the excellent Kyria and her children."
[357]
There is one question which we naturally ask about every school and
form of religion. It is the question which a great English Professor of
Divinity used to ask his pupils to put in a homely form about every
religious scheme and mode of utterance--"will it wash well?" Is it an
influence which seems to be productive and lasting? Does it abide
through time and trials? Is it capable of being passed on to another
generation? Are plans, services, organizations, preachings, classes,
vital or showy? Are they fads to meet fancies, or works to supply
wants? Is that which we hold such sober, solid truth, that wise piety
can say of it, half in benediction, half in prophecy [358] --"the truth
which abideth in us; yea, and with us it shall be for ever?"
2. We turn to the contents of the Epistle.
We shall be better able to appreciate the value of these, if we
consider the state of Christian literature at that time.
What had Christians to read and carry about with them? The excellent
work of the Bible Society was physically impossible for long centuries
to come. No doubt the LXX. version of the Old Testament was widely
spread. In every great city of the Roman Empire there was a vast
population of Jews. Many of these were baptized into the Church, and
carried into it with them their passionate belief in the Old Testament.
The Christians of the time and place to which we refer could, probably,
with little trouble, if not read, yet hear the Old Covenant and able
expositions of it. But they had not copies of the entire New Testament.
Indeed, if all the New Testament was then written, it certainly was not
collected into one volume, nor constituted one supreme authority. "Many
barbarous nations," says a very ancient Father, "believe in Christ
without written record, having salvation impressed through the Spirit
in their hearts, and diligently preserving the old tradition." [359]
Possibly a Church or single believer had one synoptical Gospel. At
Ephesus Christians had doubtless been catechised in, and were deeply
imbued with, St. John's view of the Person, work, and teaching of our
Lord. This had now been moulded into shape, and definitely committed to
writing in that glorious Gospel, the Church's Holy of Holies, St.
John's Gospel. For them and for their contemporaries there was a living
realization of the Gospel. They had heard it from eye-witnesses. They
had passed into the wonderland of God. The earth on which Jesus trod
had blossomed into miracle. The air was haunted by the echoes of His
voice. They had, probably, also a certain number of the Epistles of St.
Paul. The Christians of Ephesus would have a special interest in their
own Epistle to the Ephesians, and in the two which were written to
their first Bishop, Timothy. They had also (whether written or not)
impressed upon their memories by their weekly Eucharist, the liturgical
Canon of consecration according to the Ephesian usage--from which, and
not from the Roman, the Spanish and Gallican seem to be derived. The
Ephesian Christians had also the first Epistle of St. John, which in
some form accompanied the Gospel, and is, indeed, a picture of
spiritual life drawn from it. But let us remember that the Epistle is
not of a character to be very quickly or readily learned by heart. Its
subtle, latent links of connection do not present many grappling hooks
for the memory to fasten itself to. Copies also must have been
comparatively few.
Now let us see how the second Epistle may well have been related to the
first.
Supremely, and above all else, the first Epistle contained three
warnings, very necessary for those times. (1) There was a danger of
losing the true Christ, the Word made Flesh, Who for the forgiveness of
our sins did shed out of His most precious side both water and
blood--in a false, because shadowy and ideal Christ. (2) There was
danger of losing true love, and therefore spiritual life, with truth.
(3) With the true Christ and true love there was a danger of losing the
true commandment--love of God and of the brethren. Now in the second
Epistle these very three warnings were written on a leaflet in a form
more calculated for circulation and for remembrance. (1) Against the
peril of faith, of losing the true Christ. "Many deceivers are gone out
into the world--they who confess not Jesus Christ coming in flesh. This
is the deceiver and the antichrist." [360] With the true Christ, the
true doctrine of Christ would also vanish, and with it all living hold
upon God. Progress was the watchword; but it was in reality regress.
"Every one who abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God."
[361] (2) Against the peril of losing love. "I beseech thee, Kyria ...
that we love one another." [362] (3) Against the peril of losing the
true commandment (the great spiritual principle of charity), or the
true commandments [363] (that principle in the details of life). "And
this is love, that we walk after His commandments. This is the
commandment, that even as ye heard from the beginning ye should walk in
it." [364]
Here then were the chief practical elements of the first Epistle
contracted into a brief and easily remembered shape.
Easily remembered, too, was the stern, practical prohibition of the
intimacies of hospitality with those who came to the home of the
Christian, in the capacity of emissaries of the antichrist above
indicated. "Receive him not into your house, and good speed salute him
not with." [365]
Many are offended with this. No doubt Christianity is the religion of
love--"the epiphany of the sweet-naturedness and philanthropy of God."
[366] We very often look upon heresy or unbelief with the tolerance of
curiosity rather than of love. At all events, the Gospel has its
intolerance as well as tolerance. St. John certainly had this. It is
not a true conception in art which invests him with the mawkish
sweetness of perpetual youth. There is a sense in which he was a son of
Thunder to the last. He who believes and knows must formulate a dogma.
A dogma frozen by formality, or soured by hate, or narrowed by
stupidity, makes a bigot. In reading the Church History of the first
four centuries we are often tempted to ask, why all this subtlety, this
theology-spinning, this dogma-hammering? The answer stands out clear
above the mists of controversy. Without all this the Church would have
lost the conception of Christ, and thus finally Christ Himself. St.
John's denunciations have had a function in Christendom as well as his
love.
3. There are two most precious indications of the highest Christian
truth with which we may conclude.
We have prefixed to this Epistle that beautiful Apostolic salutation
which is found in two only among the Epistles of St. Paul. [367] After
that simple, but exquisite expression of blessing merged in
prophecy--"the truth which abideth in us--yes! and with us it shall be
for ever" [368] --there comes another verse set in the same key. "There
shall be with us grace, mercy, peace, from God the Father, and from
Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, in truth" of thought, "and love" of
life. [369]
This rush and reduplication of words is not very like the usual reserve
and absence of emotional excitement in St. John's style. Can it be that
something (possibly the glorious death of martyrdom by which Timothy
died) led St. John to use words which were probably familiar to
Ephesian Christians?
However this may be, let us live by and learn from those lovely words.
Our poverty wants grace, our guilt wants mercy, our misery wants peace.
Let us ever keep the Apostle's order. Do not let us put peace, our
feeling of peace, first. The emotionalists' is a topsy-turvy theology.
Apostles do not say "peace and grace," but "grace and peace."
One more--in an age which substitutes an ideal something called the
spirit of Christianity for Christ, let us hold fast to that which is
the essence of the Gospel and the kernel of our three creeds. "To
confess Jesus Christ coming in flesh." [370] Couple with this a canon
of the First Epistle--"confesseth Jesus Christ come in flesh." [371]
The second is the Incarnation fact with its abiding consequences; the
first, the Incarnation principle ever living in a Person, Who will also
be personally manifested. This is the substance of the Gospels; this
the life of prayers and sacraments; this the expectation of the saints.
NOTES.
Ver. 1). The Elder.] This word has played a great part in an important
controversy. It is argued that the Elder of this and of the Third
Epistle is the author indeed of the first Epistle and of the Gospel,
but cannot be the Apostle St. John, who would not, (it is alleged,)
call himself ho presbuteros. And Eusebius (H.E. lib. iii., cap. ult.)
preserves a fragment from Papias, which he misunderstands to indicate
that there were two Johns (see Riggenbach, Leben Jesu, 59, 60). But
even if the word be Presbyter, and points to an ecclesiastical title,
it might stand precisely on the same footing as St. Peter's
language--"the elders among you I exhort, who am a fellow elder" (1
Pet. v. 1). The Elder at the opening of the Second and Third Epistles
of St. John, may well signify the aged Apostle, the oldest of the
company of Jesus, the one living representative of the traditions of
Galilee and Jerusalem.
Ver. 7). The seducer.] ho planos. The almost technical force of this
word would be adequately appreciated only by readers more or less
imbued with Jewish ideas. It was indeed the really strong motive in the
terrible game which the Jewish priests played in bringing about the
death of our Lord. The process against the Mesith, "seducer," is drawn
out in the Talmud with an effrontery at once puerile and revolting. The
man accused of seduction was to be drawn into conversation, while two
witnesses were hidden in the next room,--and candles were to be
lighted, as if accidentally, close by him, that the witnesses might be
sure that they had seen, as well as heard the heretic. He was to be
called upon to retract his heretical pravity. If he refused, he was to
be brought before the Council, and stoned if the verdict was against
him. The Talmudists add that this was the legal process carried out
against Jesus: that He was condemned upon the testimony of two
witnesses; and that the crime of "misleading" was the only one which
was thus formally dealt with. (See references to the Talmud of
Jerusalem, and that of Babylon, Vie de Jesus, Renan, 394, N. 1). The
Gospels tell us that the accusation against our Lord was "misleading:"
and the terrible word in the verse which we are examining was actually
applied to Him (ekeinos ho planos, Matt. xxvii. 63; plana ton ochlon
John vii. 12; me kai humeis peplanesthe John vii. 47).
"Excepting some minutiæ which were the product of the Rabbinical
imagination, the narrative of the Evangelists answers, point by point,
to the process actually laid down by the Talmud" (Renan, ut sup.).
Ver. 9). Every one who leadeth forward.] pas ho proagon is certainly
the true reading here; the commander himself pushing boldly onward, and
also carrying others with him. The allusion is polemical to the vaunted
progress of the Gnostic teachers.
"The doctrine which is Christ's."] What is that? John vii. 16. The
doctrine which Christ emphatically called "My doctrine," "the
doctrine." No doubt the word (didache) sometimes means the act,
sometimes the mode, of teaching (Mark xii. 38; 1 Cor. xiv. 6); but "it
underwent a transformation which converted it into a term synonymous
with dogmatic teaching," with the body of faithful doctrine which was
the ultimate type and norm to which all statements must be conformed.
(Acts ii. 42; Tit. i. 9; Rom. vi. 17, xvi. 17; see also Matt. xvi. 12;
Acts v. 28, xvii. 19; Heb. xiii. 9.) It is much to be regretted that in
the R.V. the word "doctrine" has disappeared from all these passages,
Romans xvi. 17 alone excepted. St. John's language in this verse seems
quite decisive.
__________________________________________________________________
[348] John i. 18.
[349] There is no doubt a large amount of authority for this view that
St. John addresses a Church personified. It has the support of sacred
critics so different as Bishop Wordsworth and Bishop Lightfoot. (Ep. to
Colossians and Philemon, 305), and Professor Westcott seems (with some
hesitation) to lean to it. But there is also a great body of support,
ancient and modern, for the literal view. (Clem. Alex., Adunbr. ad ii.
Joan., Op., iii. 1011.) So Athanasius, or the author of "Synopsis S.S."
in Athanasius, Opp., iv. 410. See also the heading of the A. V. ("He
exhorteth a certain honourable matron, with her children.") For reasons
for accepting Kyria rather than Electa as the name, see Speaker's
Commentary, iv. 335.
[350] Ver. 12.
[351] eureka, ver. 4.
[352] "James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars." Gal. ii. 9.
[353] Luke ii. 36.
[354] 1 Tim. v. 3, 5, 10.
[355] 1 Tim, v. 6-11, 12, 13.
[356] 2 John 2.
[357] Ver. 1.
[358] dia ten aletheian ten menousan en hemin, kai meth' hemon estai
eis ton aiona. 2 John ver. 2.
[359] Irenæus, Hær., iii. 4.
[360] Ver. 7.
[361] Ver. 9.
[362] Ver. 5.
[363] "Commandments and commandment--Love strives to realise in detail
every separate expression of the will of God." (Prof. Westcott,
Epistles of St. John, 217).
[364] Ver. 6.
[365] It is, probably, the existence of these verses (vv. 10, 11))
which acts as a stimulus to many liberal Christian commentators in
favour of the ultra-mystical view, that the lady addressed in this
Epistle is a Church personified. It should be carefully noted that St.
John speaks of a formal summons, so to speak, from an emissary of
antichrist as such. (ei tis erchetai pros humas, ver. 10)). St. John,
also, must have detected a danger in the very gentleness of Kyria's
character, or in the disposition of some of her children. So much,
indeed, might seem implied in the sudden, solemn, and rather startling
warning, which entreated constant continuous care (blepete heautous),
so that they should not in some momentary impulse, under the charm of
some deceiver, lose what they had wrought, and with it reward in
fulness (hina me apolesete, ver. 10).
[366] Titus iii. 4.
[367] 1 Tim. i. 1; 2 Tim. i. 2.
[368] The construction altered to bring out the meaning more strikingly
than a uniform structure could have done.--Winer, Gr. Gr., Part III., §
3.
[369] Estai meth' humon charis, eleos, eirene, k.t.l. 2 John ver. 3).
[370] Iesoun Christon erchomenon en sarki. 2 John ver. 7).
[371] Iesoun Christon en sarki eleluthota. 1 John iv. 2.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
[Pg 294]
[Pg 295]
THE THIRD EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN.
__________________________________________________________________
III. EPISTLE.
GREEK. LATIN. AUTHORISED VERSION. REVISED VERSION. ANOTHER VERSION.
Ho presbuteros Gaio to agapeto, hon ego agapo en aletheia. Agapete,
peri panton euchomai se euodousthai kai hugiainein, kathos euodoutai
sou he psuche. echaren gar lian erchomenon adelphon kai marturounton
sou te aletheia, kathos su en aletheia peripateis. meizoteran touton
ouk echo charan, hina akouo ta ema tekna en aletheia peripatounta.
Agamete, piston poieis ho ean ergase eis tous adelphous kai eis tous
xenous, oi emarturesan sou te agape enopion ekklesias, ous kalos
poieseis propempsas axios tou Theou. huper gar tou onomatos exelthon
meden lambanontes apo ton ethnon. hemeis oun opheilomen apolambanein
tous toioutous, hina sunergoi ginometha te aletheia. Hegrapsa te
ekklesia; all' ho philoproteuon auton Diotrephes ouk epidechetai hemas.
dia touto, ean eltho, hupomneso autou ta erga ha poiei logois ponerois
phluaron hemas, kai me arkoumenos epi toutois oute autos epidechetai
tous adelphous, kai tous boulomenous koluei kai ek tes ekklesias
ekballei. Agapete, me mimou to kakon, alla to agathon. ho agathopoion
ek tou Theou estin; ho de kakopoion ouch heoraken ton Theon. Demetrio
memarturetai hupo panton kai hup' autes tes aletheias; kai hemeis de
marturoumen, kai oidate hoti he marturia hemon alethes esti. Polla
eichon graphein, all' ou thelo dia melanos kai kalamou soi grapsai;
elpizo de eutheos idein se, kai stoma pros stoma lalesomen. Eirene soi.
Aspazontai se oi philoi; aspazou tous philous kat' onoma.
Senior Gaio carissimo, quem ego diligo in veritate. Carissime, de
omnibus orationem facio prosper te ingredi et valere, sicut prospere
agit anima tua. Gavisus sum valde venientibus fratribus et testimonium
perhibentibus veritati tuæ, sicut tu in veritate ambulas. Maiorem horum
non habeo gratiam quam ut audiam filios meos in veritate ambulantes.
Carissime, fideliter facias quidquid operaris in fratres, et hoc in
peregrinos; qui testimonium reddiderunt caritati tuæ in conspectu
ecclesiæ; quos bene facies ducens digna Deo. Pro nomine enim profecti
sunt nihil accipientes a gentibus. Nos ergo debemus suscipere huiusmodi
ut cooperatores simus veritatis. Scripsissem sitan ecclesiæ: sedis qui
amat primatum gerere in eis Diotripes non recipit nos. Propter hoc, si
venero, commoneam eius opera quæ facit verbis malignis garriens in nos,
et quasi non ei ista sufficiant, nec ipse suscipit fratres, et eos quo
cupiunt prohibet et de ecclesia eicit. Carissime, noli imitari malum,
sed quod bonum est. Qui bene facit, ex Deo est: qui male facit, non
videt Deum. Demetrio testimonium redditur ab omnibus et ab ipsa
veritate: et nos testimonium perhibemus, et nosti quoniam testimonium
nostrum verum est. Multa habui scribere tibi, sed nolui per atramentum
et calamum scribere tibi: spero autem protinus te videre, et os ad os
loquimur. Pax tibi. Salutant te amici. Saluta amicos per nomen.
The elder unto the well beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in
health, even as thy soul prospereth. For I rejoiced greatly, when the
brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou
walkest in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my
children walk in truth. Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou
doest to the brethren, and to strangers; which have borne witness of
thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their
journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: because that for His
name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We
therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the
truth. I wrote unto the Church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the
pre-eminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will
remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious
words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the
brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the
church. Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.
He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
Demetrius hath good report of all men, and of the truth itself: yea,
and we also bear record; and ye know that our record is true. I had
many things to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto thee:
but I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face.
Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name.
The elder unto Gaius the beloved, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray
that in all things thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy
soul prospereth. For I rejoiced greatly, when brethren came and bare
witness unto thy truth, even as thou walkest in truth. Greater joy have
I none than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth. Beloved,
thou doest a faithful work in whatsoever thou doest toward them that
are brethren and strangers withal; who bare witness to thy love before
the church: whom thou wilt do well to set forward on their journey
worthily of God: because that for the sake of the Name they went forth,
taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to welcome such,
that we may be fellow-workers with the truth. I wrote somewhat unto the
church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them,
receiveth us not. Therefore, if I come, I will bring to remembrance his
works which he doeth, prating against us with wicked words: and not
content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and
them that would he forbiddeth, and casteth them out of the church.
Beloved, imitate not that which is evil, but that which is good. He
that doeth good is of God: he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
Demetrius hath the witness of all men, and of the truth itself: yea, we
also bear witness; and thou knowest that our witness is true. I had
many things to write unto thee, but I am unwilling to write them to
thee with ink and pen: but I hope shortly to see thee, and we shall
speak face to face. Peace be unto thee. The friends salute thee. Salute
the friends by name.
The Elder unto Gaius the beloved, whom I love in truth. Beloved, in all
things I pray that thou mayest prosper, and be in health, even as thy
soul prospereth. For I was exceeding glad of brethren coming and
witnessing to thy truth, even as thou truly walkest. Greater joy than
these joys I have not, that I should hear of my own children walking
truly. Beloved, thou doest in faithful wise whatsoever thou art working
towards the brethren who are moreover strangers; which witness to thy
charity before the Church; whom thou wilt do well to speed forward on
their journey worthily of God: because that for the sake of the Name
they went out taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore are bound to
take up such that we may become fellow-workers with the truth. I wrote
somewhat unto the Church: but Diotrephes who loveth to have primacy
over them receiveth us not. Wherefore if I come I will bring to
remembrance his works which he is doing, prating against us with wicked
words: and not contented hereupon neither doth he himself receive the
brethren, and them that would he hindereth, and casteth them out of the
Church. Beloved, imitate not that which is evil, but that which is
good. He who is doing good is from God; he that is doing evil hath not
seen God. To Demetrius witness stands given of all men and of the truth
itself: yea, and we also are witnessing, and ye know that our witness
is true. Many things I had to have written, but I am not willing to be
writing unto thee with ink and pen: but I am hoping straightway to see
thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace unto thee. The friends
greet thee. Greet the friends by name.
__________________________________________________________________
DISCOURSE XVII.
THE QUIETNESS OF TRUE RELIGION.
"The elder unto the well beloved Gaius.... He that doeth good is of
God; but he that doeth evil hath not seen God."--3 John 1, 11.
The mere analysis of this note must necessarily present a meagre
outline. There is a brief expression of pleasure at the tidings of the
sweet and gracious hospitality of Gaius which was brought by certain
missionary brethren to Ephesus, coupled with the assurance of the truth
and consistency of his whole walk. The haughty rejection of Apostolic
letters of communion by Diotrephes is mentioned with a burst of
indignation. A contrast to Diotrephes is found in Demetrius, with the
threefold witness to a life so worthy of imitation. A brief
greeting--and we have done with the last written words of St. John
which the Church possesses.
I.
Let us first see whether, without passing over the bounds of historical
probability, we can fill up this bare outline with some colouring of
circumstance.
To two of the three individuals named in this Epistle we seem to have
some clue.
The Gaius addressed is, of course, Caius in Latin, a very common
prænomen, no doubt.
Three persons of the name appear in the New Testament [372] --unless we
suppose St. John's Caius to be a fourth. But the generous and beautiful
hospitality adverted to in this note is entirely of a piece with the
character of him of whom St. Paul had written, "Gaius, mine host, and
of the whole Church." [373] We know further, from one of the most
ancient and authentic documents of Christian literature, that the
Church of Corinth (to which this Caius belonged) was, just at the
period when St. John wrote, in a lamentable state of schismatic
confusion. Diotrephes may, at such a period, have been aspiring to put
forward his claim at Corinth; and may, in his ambitious proceedings,
have rejected from communion the brethren whom St. John had sent to
Caius. [374] A yet more interesting reflection is suggested by a
writing of considerable authority. The writer of the "Synopsis of Holy
Scripture," which stands amongst the Works of Athanasius, says--"the
Gospel according to John was both dictated by John the Apostle and
beloved when in exile at Patmos, and by him was published in Ephesus,
through Caius the beloved and friend of the Apostles, of whom Paul also
writing to the Romans saith, Caius mine host, and of the whole Church."
[375] This would give a very marked significance to one touch in this
Third Epistle of St. John. The phrase here "and we bear witness also,
and ye know that our witness is true"--clearly points back to the
closing attestation of the Gospel--"and we know that his witness is
true." [376] He counts upon a quick recognition of a common memory.
[377]
Demetrius is, of course, a name redolent of the worship of Demeter the
Earth-Mother, and of Ephesian surroundings. No reader of the New
Testament needs to be reminded of the riot at Ephesus, which is told at
such length in the history of St. Paul's voyages by St. Luke. The
conjecture that the agitator of the turbulent guild of silversmiths who
made silver shrines of Diana may have become the Demetrius, the object
of St. John's lofty commendation, is by no means improbable. There is a
peculiar fulness in the narrative of the Acts, and an amplitude and
exactness in the reports of the speeches of Demetrius and of the
town-clerk which betray both unusually detailed information, and a
feeling on the part of the writer that the subject was one of much
interest for many readers. [378] The very words of Demetrius about Paul
evince that uneasy sense of the powers of fascination possessed by the
Apostle which is often the first timid witness of reluctant conviction.
[379] The whole story would be of thrilling interest to those who,
knowing well what Demetrius had become, were here told what he once had
been. In a very ancient document (the so-called "Apostolic
Constitutions") [380] we read that "Demetrius was appointed Bishop of
Philadelphia by me," i.e., by the Apostle John. To the Bishop of a city
so often shaken by the earthquakes of that volcanic soil came the
commendation--"I know thy works that thou didst keep My word;" and the
assuring promise that he should, when the victory was won, have the
solidity and permanence of "a pillar" in a "temple" [381] that no
convulsion could shake down. The witness then, which stands on record
for the Bishop of Philadelphia, is threefold; the threefold witness of
the First Epistle on a reduced scale--the witness of the world; [382]
the witness of the Truth itself, even of Jesus; [383] the witness of
the Church--including John. [384]
II.
We may now advert to the contents and general style of this letter.
1. As to its contents.
1. It supplies us with a valuable test of Christian life, in what may
be called the Christian instinct of missionary affection, possessed in
such full measure by Caius. [385]
This, indeed, is an ingredient of Christian character. Do we admire and
feel attracted by missionaries? They are knight-errants of the Faith;
leaders of the "forlorn hope" of Christ's cause; bearers of the flag of
the cross through the storms of battle. Do we wish to honour and to
help them, and feel ennobled by doing so? He who has no almost
enthusiastic regard for missionaries has not the spirit of primitive
Christianity within his breast.
2. The Church is beset with different dangers from very different
quarters. The second Epistle of St. John has its bold unmistakable
warning of danger from the philosophical atmosphere which is not only
round the Church, but necessarily finds its way within. Those who
assume to be leaders of intellectual and even of spiritual progress
sometimes lead away from Christ. The test of scientific truth is
accordance with the proposition which embodies the last discovery; the
test of religious truth is accordance with the proposition which
embodies the first discovery, i.e., "the doctrine of Christ." Progress
outside this is regress; it is desertion first of Christ, ultimately of
God. [386] As the second Epistle warns the Church of peril from
speculative ambition, so the third Epistle marks a danger from personal
ambition, [387] arrogating to itself undue authority within the Church.
Diotrephes in all probability was a bishop. [388] At Rome there has
been a permanent Diotrephes in the office of the Papacy; how much this
has had to say to the dislocation of Christendom, God knows. But there
are other smaller and more vulgar continuators of Diotrephes, who
occupy no Vatican. Priests! But there are priests in different senses.
The priest who stands to minister in holy things, the true Leitourgos
is rightly so-called. But there is an arrogant priestship which would
do violence to conscience, and interpose rudely between God and the
soul. Priests in this sense are called by different names. They are
clad in different dresses--some in chasubles, some in frock-coats, some
in petticoats. "Down with priestcraft," is even the cry of many of
them. The priest who stands to offer sacrifice may or may not be a
priest in the evil sense; the priest (who abjures the name) who is a
master of religious small-talk of the popular kind, and winds people to
his own ends round his little finger by using them deftly, is often the
modern edition of Diotrephes.
3. This brief Epistle contains one of those apparently mere spiritual
truisms, which make St. John the most powerful and comprehensive of all
spiritual teachers. He had suggested a warning to Caius, which serves
as the link to connect the example of Diotrephes which he has
denounced, with that of Demetrius which he is about to commend.
"Beloved!" he cries, "imitate not that which is evil, but that which is
good." A glorious little "Imitation of Christ," a compression of his
own Gospel, the record of the Great Example in three words! [389] Then
follows this absolutely exhaustive division, which covers the whole
moral and spiritual world. "He that doeth good," (the whole principle
of whose moral life is this,) "is of," has his origin from, "God;" "he
that doeth evil hath not seen God," sees Him not as a consequence of
having spiritually looked upon Him. Here, at last, we have the flight
of the eagle's wing, the glance of the eagle's eye. Especially valuable
are these words, almost at the close of the Apostolic age and of the
New Testament Scripture. They help us to keep the delicate balance of
truth; they guard us against all abuse of the precious doctrines of
grace. Several texts are mutilated; more are conveniently dropped out.
How seldom does one see the whole context quoted, in tracts and sheets,
of that most blessed passage--"if we walk in the light, as He is in the
light, the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin?" How
often do we see these words at all--"he that doeth good is of God, but
he that doeth evil hath not seen God?" Perhaps it may be a lingering
suspicion that a text which comes out of a very short Epistle is worth
very little. Perhaps doctrinalism à outrance considers that the
sentiment "savours of works." But, at all events, there is terrible
decisiveness about these antithetic propositions. For each life is
described in section and in plan by one or other of the two. The whole
complicated series of thought, actions, habits, purposes, summed up in
the words life and character, is a continuous stream issuing from the
man who necessarily is doing every moment of his existence. The stream
is either pure, bright, cleansing, gladdening, capable of being tracked
by a thread of emerald wherever it flows; or it carries with it on its
course blackness, bitterness, and barrenness. Men must be plainly dealt
with. They may hold any creed, or follow any round of religious
practices. There are creeds which are nobly true, others which are
false and feeble--practices which are beautiful and elevating, others
which are petty and unprofitable. They may repeat the shibboleth ever
so accurately; and follow the observances ever so closely. They may
sing hymns until their throats are hoarse, and beat drums until their
wrists are sore. But St. John's propositions ring out, loud and clear,
and syllable themselves in questions, which one day or other the
conscience will put to us with terrible distinctness. Are you one who
is ever doing good; or one who is not doing good? "God be merciful to
me a sinner!" may well rush to our lips. But that, when opportunity is
given, must be followed by another prayer. Not only--"wash away my
sins." Something more. "Fill and purify me with Thy Spirit, that,
pardoned and renewed, I may become good, and be doing good." It is
sometimes said that the Church is full of souls "dying of their
morality." Is it not at least equally true to say that the Church is
full of souls dying of their spirituality? That is--souls dying in one
case of unreal morality; in the other of unreal spirituality, which
juggles with spiritual words, making a sham out of them. Morality which
is not spiritual, is imperfect; spirituality which is not moralized
through and through is of the spirit of evil.
It is a great thing that in these last sentences, written with a
trembling hand, which shrank from the labour of pen and ink, [390] the
Apostle should have lifted a word (probably current in the atmosphere
of Ephesus among spiritualists and astrologers [391] ), from the low
applications with which it was undeservedly associated; and should have
rung out high and clear the Gospel's everlasting justification, the
final harmony of the teaching of grace--"he that doeth good is of God."
III.
The style of the third Epistle of St. John is certainly that of an old
man. It is reserved in language and in doctrine. God is thrice and
thrice only mentioned. [392] Jesus is not once expressly uttered. But
"... They are not empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness."
In religion, as in everything else, we are earnest, not by aiming at
earnestness, but by aiming at an object. Religious language should be
deep and real, rather than demonstrative. It is not safe to play with
sacred names. To pronounce them at random for the purpose of being
effective and impressive is to take them in vain. What a wealth of
reverential love there is in that--"for the sake of the Name!" [393]
Old copyists sometimes thought to improve upon the impressiveness of
Apostles by cramming in sacred names. They only maimed what they
touched with clumsy hand. A deeper sense of the Sacramental Presence is
in the hushed, awful, reverence of "not discerning the Body," than in
the interpolated "not discerning of the Lord's Body." Even so "The
Name," perhaps, speaks more to the heart, and implies more than "His
Name." It is, indeed, the "beautiful Name," by the which we are called.
And sometimes in sermons, or in Eucharistic "Gloria in Excelsis," or in
hymns that have come from such as St. Bernard, or in sick rooms, it
shall go up with our sweetest music, and waken our tenderest thoughts,
and be "as ointment poured forth." But what an underlying Gospel, what
an intense suppressed flame there is behind these quiet words! This
letter says nothing of rapture, of prophecy, of miracle. It lies in the
atmosphere of the Church, as we find it even now. It has a word for
friendship. It seeks to individualise its benediction. [394] A hush of
evening rests upon the note. May such an evening close upon our old
age!
NOTES.
Ver. 2 ... thy soul.] Strange difficulty seems to be felt in some
quarters about the word psuche, as used by our Lord and the Apostles.
The difficulty arises from a singular argument advanced by M. Renan. He
maintains that Christ and His first followers knew nothing of "the
soul" as the immortal principle in man--that in him which is capable of
being saved or lost. It was simply, according to him, either the animal
natural life [395] (Matt. ii. 20; John xii. 25); or at most the vague
Greek immortality of the shadows, as opposed to the later Hebrew
Resurrection-life. But there are very numerous passages in the New
Testament where "soul" can only be used for "life as created by God;"
for the thinking substance, different from the body and indestructible
by death, created with possibilities of eternal happiness or misery.
(The following passages are decisive--Matt. x. 28, xi. 29; Acts ii. 27;
2 Cor. xii. 13; Heb. xiii. 17; 1 Pet. i. 9, 22, ii. 11, 25; Jas. i. 21,
v. 20; 3 John 2; Apoc. vi. 9, xx. 4).
__________________________________________________________________
[372] Caius, a Macedonian (Acts xix. 29); Caius of Derbe (Acts xx. 4);
Caius of Corinth (Rom. xvi. 23; 1 Cor. i. 14).
[373] Rom. xvi. 23.
[374] No doubt ver. 10 presents some difficulty. Voyages between
Corinth were regularly and easily performed. Still it is scarcely
probable that the aged Apostle should have contemplated such a voyage.
But the form (ean eltho) purposely expresses possibility rather than
probability--the smallest amount of presumption--if I shall come, which
is not quite impossible. (Donaldson, Gr. Gr., "Conditional
Propositions." 501.) The hope of seeing Caius "face to face" (ver. 14)
contains no objection, as it may refer to a visit of Caius to Ephesus.
[375] "Synopsis S.S." '76. (S. Athanas., Opp., iv. 433. Edit. Migne.)
[376] Read together 3 John 12, and John xxi. 24.
[377] The writer had worked out his conclusions about Caius
independently before he happened to read Bengel's note. "Caius Corinthi
de quo Rom. xvi. 23, vel huic Caio, Johannis amico, fuit simillimus in
hospitalite--vel idem;--si idem, ex Achaia in Asiam migravit, vel
Corinthum Johannes hanc epistolam misit."
[378] Acts xix. 23-41.
[379] "Almost throughout all Asia this Paul hath persuaded and turned
away much people, saying, that they be no gods, which are made with
hands."--Acts xix. 26.
[380] vii. 46.
[381] Apoc. iii. 7, 8, 12.
[382] "All men."
[383] Kai hup' autes tes aletheias i.e., Jesus (Apoc. iii. 7, 12). This
type of expression marks the "Asiatic school." So Papias; ap' autes tes
aletheias (Ap. Euseb. H. E., iii. 39). Cf. John xiv. 6.
[384] "And we also bear witness." 3 John 12.
[385] 3 John 5, 6, 7.
[386] 2 John 9.
[387] 3 John 9, 10.
[388] See authorities quoted by Archdeacon Lee (Speaker's Commentary,
Tom. ii., N.T., p. 512).
[389] mimou ... to agathon, 3 John 11.
[390] 3 John 13.
[391] The verb agathopoiein is found in a few places in the LXX and New
Testament. "Amongst profane writers, astrologers only used this verb.
They signified by it, I offer a good omen. So in Proclus and others."
See Bretsch. and Grimm, s. v. agathopoieo.
[392] "Worthily of God" ver. 6; "is of God--hath not seen God" ver. 11.
[393] Ver. 7.
[394] "The friends salute thee: salute the friends by name," ver. 14
The mention of friendship is not common in the New Testament. Beautiful
exceptions will be found in Luke xii. 4; John xi. 11, xv. 14, 15; cf.
Acts xxvii. 3.
[395] As indicated by breathing--from psucho
__________________________________________________________________
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Indexes
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Scripture References
Genesis
[1]1:1 [2]1:1 [3]1:2 [4]1:11-12 [5]1:11-12 [6]1:31 [7]2
[8]3:5 [9]3:6 [10]3:7 [11]3:15 [12]4:1-8 [13]4:8
[14]27:11-41 [15]27:41
Exodus
[16]22:28 [17]24:6 [18]28:26 [19]39:30
Leviticus
[20]8:9
Numbers
[21]23:10 [22]24:20
Deuteronomy
[23]25:1
2 Chronicles
[24]24:27
Nehemiah
[25]9:33
Job
[26]10:20-22 [27]14:1 [28]14:2
Psalms
[29]15 [30]19:8 [31]22:1 [32]24:3-7 [33]30:1 [34]34:15
[35]36:9 [36]39:5 [37]40:7 [38]87 [39]87:4 [40]87:5
[41]87:6 [42]87:7 [43]88:18 [44]89:11 [45]90:9
Proverbs
[46]8:23 [47]22:11
Isaiah
[48]14:20 [49]14:30 [50]15:9 [51]40:6-7
Jeremiah
[52]12:13 [53]31:34 [54]50:16
Jonah
[55]1:5
Micah
[56]5:2
Malachi
[57]2:15
Matthew
[58]2:20 [59]5:48 [60]5:48 [61]10:15 [62]10:27 [63]10:28
[64]10:32 [65]11:15 [66]11:22 [67]11:24 [68]11:29 [69]12:20
[70]12:41-42 [71]13:19 [72]13:43 [73]16:12 [74]19:28
[75]23:15 [76]24:3-27 [77]24:37 [78]24:39 [79]26:64
[80]27:59 [81]27:63 [82]28 [83]28:13
Mark
[84]4:9 [85]4:23 [86]6:11 [87]7:16 [88]7:21 [89]12:38
[90]12:44 [91]13:32 [92]13:37 [93]16:8 [94]16:18
Luke
[95]1:78 [96]2:36 [97]2:37 [98]8:8 [99]10:14 [100]10:20
[101]11:31-32 [102]12:4 [103]14:35 [104]18:2 [105]18:31-33
[106]18:31-43 [107]18:35-43 [108]21:4 [109]22:29-30
[110]24:37 [111]24:39 [112]24:39-40 [113]24:41
John
[114]1:1 [115]1:1 [116]1:1-4 [117]1:1-14 [118]1:1-14
[119]1:1-15 [120]1:3 [121]1:3-5 [122]1:4 [123]1:4 [124]1:4
[125]1:7 [126]1:13 [127]1:14 [128]1:14 [129]1:14 [130]1:14
[131]1:14-51 [132]1:15-36 [133]1:16 [134]1:18 [135]1:18
[136]1:19 [137]1:19 [138]1:19 [139]1:26 [140]1:26-33
[141]1:28 [142]1:29 [143]1:29 [144]1:29 [145]1:29 [146]1:31
[147]1:32 [148]1:32 [149]1:33 [150]1:34-36 [151]1:36
[152]1:37 [153]1:38-39 [154]1:39 [155]1:41 [156]1:41
[157]1:42 [158]1:43 [159]1:45 [160]1:45 [161]1:45 [162]1:45
[163]1:47 [164]1:47 [165]1:49 [166]1:49 [167]1:50-51
[168]2:2 [169]2:2 [170]2:4 [171]2:6 [172]2:7-8 [173]2:9
[174]2:9 [175]2:9 [176]2:9 [177]2:11 [178]2:13-14 [179]2:16
[180]2:19 [181]2:21 [182]2:21 [183]3 [184]3 [185]3:2
[186]3:2 [187]3:2 [188]3:3 [189]3:5 [190]3:5 [191]3:5
[192]3:5 [193]3:5 [194]3:5 [195]3:5 [196]3:5-22 [197]3:10
[198]3:16 [199]3:19 [200]3:21 [201]3:22 [202]3:23 [203]3:25
[204]3:27 [205]3:27-36 [206]3:33 [207]3:33 [208]3:36
[209]4:5 [210]4:6 [211]4:6-16 [212]4:7 [213]4:7
[214]4:11-12 [215]4:13 [216]4:13-14 [217]4:14 [218]4:29-42
[219]4:34 [220]4:39 [221]4:39 [222]4:39 [223]4:39 [224]4:39
[225]4:39 [226]4:42 [227]4:46 [228]4:48 [229]4:50 [230]5:1
[231]5:1 [232]5:3 [233]5:4 [234]5:6 [235]5:8 [236]5:9
[237]5:10 [238]5:10 [239]5:11 [240]5:15 [241]5:20 [242]5:21
[243]5:21 [244]5:21 [245]5:23 [246]5:24 [247]5:24 [248]5:24
[249]5:26 [250]5:26 [251]5:28-29 [252]5:28-29 [253]5:29
[254]5:29 [255]5:31 [256]5:36 [257]5:36 [258]5:37 [259]5:38
[260]5:39 [261]5:39 [262]5:39 [263]5:39 [264]5:43 [265]5:46
[266]5:46 [267]5:46 [268]5:46 [269]5:47 [270]6 [271]6
[272]6 [273]6:2 [274]6:5 [275]6:14 [276]6:19 [277]6:19
[278]6:19 [279]6:28-30 [280]6:31 [281]6:35 [282]6:36
[283]6:40 [284]6:51 [285]6:53 [286]6:53-54 [287]6:53-56
[288]6:53-56 [289]6:53-56 [290]6:56 [291]6:68-69 [292]6:68-69
[293]6:69 [294]6:70 [295]6:70 [296]6:70 [297]7:1 [298]7:6
[299]7:12 [300]7:16-17 [301]7:35 [302]7:37 [303]7:37
[304]7:37 [305]7:39 [306]7:39 [307]7:39 [308]7:39 [309]7:46
[310]7:46 [311]7:46 [312]7:46 [313]7:47 [314]8:4 [315]8:7
[316]8:12-35 [317]8:17-18 [318]8:17-18 [319]8:17-18 [320]8:18
[321]8:18 [322]8:18 [323]8:36 [324]8:44 [325]8:44 [326]8:44
[327]8:45-46 [328]8:48 [329]8:58 [330]9 [331]9:3 [332]9:7
[333]9:7 [334]9:7 [335]9:7 [336]9:38 [337]9:41 [338]10:1
[339]10:20 [340]10:25 [341]10:25 [342]10:37 [343]10:39
[344]11:4 [345]11:11 [346]11:13 [347]11:16 [348]11:25
[349]11:27 [350]11:35 [351]11:36 [352]11:44 [353]11:45
[354]12:7 [355]12:12-13 [356]12:17 [357]12:19-21
[358]12:20-34 [359]12:24 [360]12:25 [361]12:28 [362]12:28
[363]12:35 [364]12:50 [365]13:1 [366]13:1-3 [367]13:1-5
[368]13:1-6 [369]13:2 [370]13:4-5 [371]13:5 [372]13:6
[373]13:14 [374]13:27 [375]13:30 [376]13:30 [377]13:30
[378]13:38 [379]14 [380]14 [381]14 [382]14 [383]14
[384]14:1 [385]14:6 [386]14:16 [387]14:18 [388]14:19
[389]14:19-21 [390]14:21 [391]14:23 [392]14:23 [393]14:26
[394]14:26 [395]14:26 [396]15 [397]15 [398]15 [399]15
[400]15:12-17 [401]15:14-15 [402]15:18-19 [403]15:24
[404]15:26 [405]15:26 [406]15:26 [407]15:27 [408]16 [409]16
[410]16:7 [411]16:13-16 [412]16:16 [413]16:22 [414]16:33
[415]17 [416]17:1 [417]17:1 [418]17:21-23 [419]17:24
[420]18:6 [421]18:14 [422]18:37 [423]18:37 [424]18:38
[425]18:38 [426]19:4 [427]19:4 [428]19:5 [429]19:5
[430]19:5 [431]19:5-6 [432]19:6 [433]19:11 [434]19:17-18
[435]19:26-28 [436]19:27 [437]19:27 [438]19:29-35 [439]19:30
[440]19:34 [441]19:34 [442]19:34 [443]19:34 [444]19:34
[445]19:34 [446]19:34 [447]19:34 [448]19:35 [449]19:35
[450]19:35-37 [451]19:36-37 [452]19:38 [453]20 [454]20:5
[455]20:10-11 [456]20:14 [457]20:15-17 [458]20:16 [459]20:19
[460]20:20 [461]20:20 [462]20:20 [463]20:21 [464]20:22
[465]20:22 [466]20:22 [467]20:22 [468]20:23 [469]20:25
[470]20:27 [471]20:27 [472]20:27 [473]20:28 [474]20:28
[475]20:28 [476]20:29 [477]20:29 [478]20:30-31 [479]20:30-31
[480]20:30-31 [481]21 [482]21:1 [483]21:1 [484]21:1
[485]21:3 [486]21:4 [487]21:5-6 [488]21:7 [489]21:7
[490]21:8 [491]21:8 [492]21:10 [493]21:12 [494]21:12
[495]21:14 [496]21:17-19 [497]21:19 [498]21:22 [499]21:23
[500]21:24 [501]21:24 [502]21:24
Acts
[503]1:7 [504]1:11 [505]1:13 [506]1:21 [507]2 [508]2
[509]2:27 [510]2:42 [511]3:4 [512]3:4 [513]5:13 [514]5:13
[515]5:28 [516]8:14 [517]8:14 [518]10:41-42 [519]10:47
[520]17:19 [521]17:27 [522]18:18-21 [523]19 [524]19:19-20
[525]19:20-21 [526]19:21 [527]19:23-41 [528]19:24 [529]19:26
[530]19:26-27 [531]19:29 [532]19:38 [533]20:4 [534]20:30
[535]20:31 [536]21:17-26 [537]26:7 [538]27:3
Romans
[539]3:24 [540]6:4 [541]6:17 [542]8:37 [543]8:37 [544]8:37
[545]12:21 [546]14:10 [547]16:1-16 [548]16:17 [549]16:17
[550]16:23 [551]16:23 [552]16:23
1 Corinthians
[553]1:2 [554]1:14 [555]11:29 [556]13 [557]14:6
[558]15:54-55 [559]15:55 [560]15:57 [561]15:57
2 Corinthians
[562]3:18 [563]5:10 [564]5:13-15 [565]5:18-19 [566]5:20
[567]12:13
Galatians
[568]2:9 [569]2:9 [570]2:9
Ephesians
[571]1:18 [572]2:10 [573]6:12-17
Colossians
[574]1:14-20 [575]3:7
1 Timothy
[576]1:1 [577]1:3-4 [578]1:4 [579]5:3 [580]5:5 [581]5:5
[582]5:6-13 [583]5:10 [584]6:7 [585]6:20
2 Timothy
[586]1:2 [587]4:13
Titus
[588]1:9 [589]3:4
Philemon
[590]1:9
Hebrews
[591]8:13 [592]9:14 [593]9:19 [594]9:27 [595]10:7 [596]13:9
[597]13:17
James
[598]1:21 [599]4:13-17 [600]5:7-8 [601]5:20
1 Peter
[602]1:2 [603]1:3-4 [604]1:9 [605]1:19 [606]1:22 [607]1:25
[608]2:11 [609]2:25 [610]5:1 [611]5:12
2 Peter
[612]1:13-15 [613]1:16 [614]2:9 [615]2:10 [616]3:4-12
[617]3:7 [618]3:15
1 John
[619]1:1 [620]1:1 [621]1:1 [622]1:1 [623]1:1 [624]1:1
[625]1:1 [626]1:1-2 [627]1:1-5 [628]1:2 [629]1:2 [630]1:2
[631]1:2 [632]1:4 [633]1:4 [634]1:4 [635]1:4 [636]1:5
[637]1:5-1 [638]1:6 [639]1:6 [640]1:7 [641]1:7 [642]1:7
[643]1:7 [644]1:7 [645]1:7 [646]1:7-8 [647]1:7-10 [648]1:8
[649]1:8 [650]1:8 [651]2:1 [652]2:1 [653]2:1-2 [654]2:1-2
[655]2:1-2 [656]2:2 [657]2:2 [658]2:2 [659]2:2 [660]2:2
[661]2:2-29 [662]2:3 [663]2:3-11 [664]2:4 [665]2:4 [666]2:4
[667]2:4-6 [668]2:6 [669]2:6 [670]2:6 [671]2:6 [672]2:6
[673]2:6 [674]2:6 [675]2:6 [676]2:7 [677]2:7 [678]2:7
[679]2:7 [680]2:8 [681]2:9 [682]2:9 [683]2:10 [684]2:11
[685]2:11 [686]2:11 [687]2:11 [688]2:12 [689]2:12-14
[690]2:12-17 [691]2:13-14 [692]2:14 [693]2:15-16 [694]2:15-16
[695]2:15-17 [696]2:16 [697]2:16 [698]2:17 [699]2:17
[700]2:17 [701]2:17 [702]2:18 [703]2:18 [704]2:18-28
[705]2:19 [706]2:19 [707]2:19 [708]2:20 [709]2:20 [710]2:20
[711]2:22 [712]2:22 [713]2:23 [714]2:24 [715]2:24 [716]2:24
[717]2:24 [718]2:24 [719]2:24 [720]2:24 [721]2:27 [722]2:27
[723]2:27 [724]2:27 [725]2:27 [726]2:28 [727]2:28 [728]2:28
[729]2:29 [730]2:29 [731]2:29 [732]2:29 [733]2:29 [734]2:29
[735]3:2 [736]3:3 [737]3:3 [738]3:3 [739]3:3 [740]3:4
[741]3:5 [742]3:6 [743]3:7 [744]3:7 [745]3:7-9 [746]3:8
[747]3:8 [748]3:8 [749]3:8-9 [750]3:9 [751]3:9 [752]3:9
[753]3:9 [754]3:9 [755]3:9 [756]3:9 [757]3:11 [758]3:11
[759]3:12 [760]3:12 [761]3:12 [762]3:12 [763]3:12-21
[764]3:14 [765]3:14-15 [766]3:14-15 [767]3:15 [768]3:15
[769]3:15 [770]3:16 [771]3:16 [772]3:16-17 [773]3:16-18
[774]3:17 [775]3:17 [776]3:17 [777]3:17 [778]3:17
[779]3:18-19 [780]3:19 [781]3:19 [782]3:19-20 [783]3:19-21
[784]3:20 [785]3:20 [786]3:20-21 [787]3:21 [788]3:21
[789]3:21 [790]3:21 [791]3:24 [792]3:24 [793]3:24-25
[794]4:1 [795]4:1 [796]4:1 [797]4:2 [798]4:2 [799]4:2-3
[800]4:2-3 [801]4:2-3 [802]4:2-3 [803]4:2-3 [804]4:3
[805]4:3 [806]4:3 [807]4:3 [808]4:3 [809]4:4 [810]4:4
[811]4:6 [812]4:7 [813]4:7 [814]4:7 [815]4:7 [816]4:7
[817]4:7 [818]4:7 [819]4:7 [820]4:8-10 [821]4:8-11 [822]4:9
[823]4:9 [824]4:10 [825]4:10 [826]4:12 [827]4:14 [828]4:16
[829]4:16 [830]4:16 [831]4:17 [832]4:17 [833]4:17 [834]4:17
[835]4:18 [836]4:19 [837]4:19 [838]4:19 [839]4:20 [840]4:20
[841]5:1-4 [842]5:3 [843]5:3 [844]5:3 [845]5:3-4 [846]5:3-5
[847]5:3-5 [848]5:3-17 [849]5:4 [850]5:4 [851]5:4 [852]5:4
[853]5:4 [854]5:4 [855]5:4 [856]5:4 [857]5:4 [858]5:4-5
[859]5:4-5 [860]5:4-5 [861]5:5 [862]5:5 [863]5:5 [864]5:6
[865]5:6 [866]5:6 [867]5:6 [868]5:6-10 [869]5:6-10
[870]5:6-12 [871]5:6-12 [872]5:7 [873]5:7 [874]5:7
[875]5:7-8 [876]5:7-8 [877]5:7-8 [878]5:8 [879]5:8 [880]5:8
[881]5:8 [882]5:9 [883]5:9 [884]5:9 [885]5:9 [886]5:9
[887]5:9 [888]5:9 [889]5:10 [890]5:10 [891]5:10 [892]5:10
[893]5:10 [894]5:10 [895]5:10 [896]5:10-11 [897]5:11
[898]5:11 [899]5:14 [900]5:14 [901]5:14 [902]5:14
[903]5:14-15 [904]5:15 [905]5:15 [906]5:17 [907]5:17
[908]5:17 [909]5:18 [910]5:18 [911]5:18 [912]5:18 [913]5:18
[914]5:18 [915]5:18 [916]5:18 [917]5:18-20 [918]5:18-20
[919]5:18-21 [920]5:19 [921]5:19 [922]5:19 [923]5:20
[924]5:20 [925]5:20 [926]5:20 [927]5:20 [928]5:20 [929]5:21
[930]5:21
2 John
[931]1:1 [932]1:1 [933]1:2 [934]1:2 [935]1:3 [936]1:3
[937]1:3 [938]1:3 [939]1:4 [940]1:5 [941]1:5-6 [942]1:6
[943]1:7 [944]1:7 [945]1:7 [946]1:7 [947]1:7 [948]1:7
[949]1:7-9 [950]1:7-11 [951]1:9 [952]1:9 [953]1:9 [954]1:9
[955]1:10 [956]1:10 [957]1:10-11 [958]1:11 [959]1:12
3 John
[960]1:1 [961]1:2 [962]1:2 [963]1:5-7 [964]1:6 [965]1:7
[966]1:7 [967]1:8 [968]1:8 [969]1:9 [970]1:9-10 [971]1:10
[972]1:10 [973]1:10 [974]1:11 [975]1:11 [976]1:11 [977]1:11
[978]1:12 [979]1:12 [980]1:12 [981]1:12 [982]1:13 [983]1:14
[984]1:14
Jude
[985]1:8
Revelation
[986]1:2 [987]1:4 [988]1:5 [989]1:5 [990]1:9 [991]1:9
[992]1:17-18 [993]2:5 [994]2:10 [995]2:13 [996]2:13-19
[997]2:14-15 [998]2:16 [999]2:20 [1000]2:24 [1001]2:24
[1002]2:26 [1003]3:3 [1004]3:3 [1005]3:3 [1006]3:5
[1007]3:5 [1008]3:6 [1009]3:7 [1010]3:7-8 [1011]3:12
[1012]3:12 [1013]3:13 [1014]3:19 [1015]3:22 [1016]4:8
[1017]5:9 [1018]6:9 [1019]6:9 [1020]7:15 [1021]7:17
[1022]9:20 [1023]12:9 [1024]12:10 [1025]12:12 [1026]13:10
[1027]13:10 [1028]14:7 [1029]14:7 [1030]14:11 [1031]14:12
[1032]14:12 [1033]16:5 [1034]18:11-14 [1035]18:20
[1036]19:12-13 [1037]20 [1038]20:1-8 [1039]20:2 [1040]20:4
[1041]20:4 [1042]20:6 [1043]20:10 [1044]20:10 [1045]20:11-13
[1046]20:11-13 [1047]20:12-13 [1048]21:6 [1049]21:8
[1050]21:18 [1051]21:19 [1052]21:19-20 [1053]21:22
[1054]21:27 [1055]22:1 [1056]22:8 [1057]22:14 [1058]22:15
[1059]22:15 [1060]22:17 [1061]22:21
Wisdom of Solomon
[1062]6:26 [1063]7:18 [1064]9:3 [1065]11:18 [1066]15:14
2 Maccabees
[1067]3:12 [1068]7:9-23 [1069]8:18 [1070]13:14
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Scripture Commentary
1 John
[1071]1:1-4 [1072]1:5-2:2 [1073]2:3-6 [1074]2:7-17
[1075]2:18-28 [1076]2:29-3:9 [1077]3:10-24 [1078]4:1-6
[1079]4:7-5:3 [1080]5:4-17 [1081]5:18-21
2 John
[1082]1:1-13
3 John
[1083]1:1-15
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Pages of the Print Edition
[1084]i [1085]iv [1086]v [1087]vi [1088]vii [1089]viii [1090]ix
[1091]x [1092]xi [1093]1 [1094]2 [1095]3 [1096]4 [1097]5
[1098]6 [1099]7 [1100]8 [1101]9 [1102]10 [1103]11 [1104]12
[1105]13 [1106]14 [1107]15 [1108]16 [1109]17 [1110]18 [1111]19
[1112]20 [1113]21 [1114]22 [1115]23 [1116]24 [1117]25 [1118]26
[1119]27 [1120]28 [1121]29 [1122]30 [1123]31 [1124]32 [1125]33
[1126]34 [1127]35 [1128]36 [1129]37 [1130]38 [1131]39 [1132]40
[1133]41 [1134]42 [1135]43 [1136]44 [1137]45 [1138]46 [1139]47
[1140]48 [1141]49 [1142]50 [1143]51 [1144]52 [1145]53 [1146]54
[1147]55 [1148]56 [1149]57 [1150]58 [1151]59 [1152]60 [1153]61
[1154]62 [1155]63 [1156]64 [1157]65 [1158]66 [1159]67 [1160]68
[1161]69 [1162]70 [1163]71 [1164]72 [1165]73 [1166]76 [1167]77
[1168]78 [1169]79 [1170]80 [1171]81 [1172]82 [1173]83 [1174]84
[1175]85 [1176]86 [1177]87 [1178]88 [1179]89 [1180]90 [1181]91
[1182]92 [1183]93 [1184]94 [1185]95 [1186]96 [1187]97 [1188]98
[1189]99 [1190]100 [1191]101 [1192]102 [1193]103 [1194]104
[1195]105 [1196]106 [1197]107 [1198]108 [1199]109 [1200]110
[1201]111 [1202]112 [1203]113 [1204]114 [1205]115 [1206]116
[1207]117 [1208]118 [1209]119 [1210]120 [1211]121 [1212]122
[1213]123 [1214]124 [1215]125 [1216]126 [1217]127 [1218]128
[1219]129 [1220]130 [1221]131 [1222]132 [1223]133 [1224]134
[1225]135 [1226]136 [1227]137 [1228]138 [1229]139 [1230]140
[1231]141 [1232]142 [1233]143 [1234]144 [1235]145 [1236]146
[1237]147 [1238]148 [1239]149 [1240]150 [1241]151 [1242]152
[1243]153 [1244]154 [1245]155 [1246]156 [1247]157 [1248]158
[1249]159 [1250]160 [1251]161 [1252]162 [1253]163 [1254]164
[1255]165 [1256]166 [1257]167 [1258]168 [1259]169 [1260]170
[1261]171 [1262]172 [1263]173 [1264]174 [1265]175 [1266]176
[1267]177 [1268]178 [1269]179 [1270]180 [1271]181 [1272]182
[1273]183 [1274]184 [1275]185 [1276]187 [1277]188 [1278]189
[1279]190 [1280]191 [1281]192 [1282]193 [1283]194 [1284]195
[1285]196 [1286]197 [1287]198 [1288]199 [1289]200 [1290]201
[1291]202 [1292]203 [1293]204 [1294]205 [1295]206 [1296]207
[1297]208 [1298]209 [1299]210 [1300]211 [1301]212 [1302]213
[1303]214 [1304]215 [1305]216 [1306]217 [1307]218 [1308]219
[1309]220 [1310]221 [1311]222 [1312]223 [1313]224 [1314]225
[1315]226 [1316]227 [1317]228 [1318]229 [1319]230 [1320]231
[1321]232 [1322]233 [1323]234 [1324]235 [1325]236 [1326]237
[1327]238 [1328]239 [1329]240 [1330]241 [1331]242 [1332]243
[1333]244 [1334]245 [1335]246 [1336]247 [1337]248 [1338]249
[1339]250 [1340]251 [1341]252 [1342]253 [1343]254 [1344]255
[1345]256 [1346]257 [1347]258 [1348]259 [1349]260 [1350]261
[1351]262 [1352]263 [1353]264 [1354]265 [1355]266 [1356]267
[1357]268 [1358]269 [1359]270 [1360]271 [1361]272 [1362]273
[1363]274 [1364]275 [1365]276 [1366]277 [1367]279 [1368]280
[1369]281 [1370]282 [1371]283 [1372]284 [1373]285 [1374]286
[1375]287 [1376]288 [1377]289 [1378]290 [1379]291 [1380]292
[1381]293 [1382]297 [1383]298 [1384]299 [1385]300 [1386]301
[1387]302 [1388]303 [1389]304 [1390]305 [1391]306 [1392]307
[1393]308 [1394]309
__________________________________________________________________
This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
generated on demand from ThML source.
References
1. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=1#iv.ii-p8.1
2. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=1#iv.xv-p13.14
3. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=2#iv.xv-p13.21
4. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=11#iv.xv-p13.12
5. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=11#iv.xv-p14.2
6. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=1&scrV=31#iv.xi-p15.1
7. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=2&scrV=0#iv.xv-p13.16
8. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=3&scrV=5#iv.xi-p26.1
9. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=3&scrV=6#iv.xi-p27.1
10. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=3&scrV=7#iv.xi-p28.1
11. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=3&scrV=15#iv.xv-p13.6
12. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=4&scrV=1#iv.xvii-p8.1
13. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=4&scrV=8#iv.xv-p13.18
14. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=27&scrV=11#iv.xvii-p56.2
15. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Gen&scrCh=27&scrV=41#iv.xv-p13.20
16. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=22&scrV=28#iv.iii-p19.2
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18. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=28&scrV=26#iii.i-p41.1
19. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Exod&scrCh=39&scrV=30#iii.i-p41.2
20. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Lev&scrCh=8&scrV=9#iii.i-p41.3
21. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Num&scrCh=23&scrV=10#iv.xv-p13.10
22. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Num&scrCh=24&scrV=20#iv.xv-p13.3
23. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=25&scrV=1#iv.xv-p13.4
24. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=2Chr&scrCh=24&scrV=27#iv.xv-p13.11
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27. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Job&scrCh=14&scrV=1#iv.xii-p14.1
28. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Job&scrCh=14&scrV=2#iv.xii-p14.2
29. file:///ccel/a/alexander_w/expositorjohnepistles/cache/expositorjohnepistles.html3?scrBook=Ps&scrCh=15&scrV=0#iv.xxvi-p18.1
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